Anyone GIMP here?

[z...@tampaad.net]

   That's the "Gnu Image Manipulation Program" or GIMP.  It's a huge collection of functions and features to do anything imaginable to an image.  However, I'm not an artist and I have no clue to use it for anything beyond 'convert an HEIC or WEBP image to JPG'.

   I have more than one image I've downloaded from the internet that have a checkerboard background and that makes the image difficult to view.  I think that the checkerboard is a 'layer' but I have no idea how to use GIMP to remove it.  Anyone here who knows how, can you walk me through it?
-ZM

 

[gr...@novadigitalfilms.com]

I've done some graphics work in GIMP long ago, before I was on the Adobe CC bandwagon and IF we were working with a different file format it MIGHT be worth trying to do this.  Unfortunately, GIF is horrible for image editing and the image itself is pretty much of a mess to begin with.  I'm thinking this is either early italian language groups or cultural identities?  If so I see a lot missing here, but this might be accurate to a time period I'm not as familiar with as like, say the 10th and 11th century when the Normans showed up and things really started getting interesting there.  So generally, I'd think it more productive to find a better graphic elsewhere.

 

If there isn't one, I'm sure there's some stuff out there that will let you make your own maps based on geography.  I could ferret one of these out for you if you need me to.

[z...@tampaad.net]

   Someone who apparently wants to remain anonymous knew how to fix this and showed me.  I asked, and he (she?) said I could tell the world.  Spread knowledge, man!

   Apparently I was mistaken.  This is not a screwed-up 'layer'.  Instead, it's an artifact of some rendering software (a viewer, to us normal people) which EXPECTS a background layer behind a clear layer of graphics, and when it gets told to show a graphic which has nothing but a transparent layer of stuff, it helpfully provides this 'default' checkerboard background to remind the creator that you forgot something.  Oh.

   So, the fix is easy.  Open the file in an image program that understands layers.  Create a new layer that is a solid color, maybe white.  Tell the program to put that solid color layer in the back so that the actual data is displayed in front of the background color, and save it.  You're done.

   Amazingly enough, the job is easy if you just know what the hell you're doing.  I think I've put that in some of my stories.  Yeah, in TFC I have my hero grumbling to himself that "Well, yes, of course.  Knowing what you are doing almost always significantly improves your effectiveness."

   I've attached another 'before and after' pair of graphics.  Oddly, converting the picture from a ray-tracing format with no background to a compressed pixel-counting format with a solid background shrank the size significantly.

-ZM

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[thinkin...@gmail.com]

I’ve used GIMP, not that I’m an expert.  I’ve seen the layer thing.  I think you can merge the layers after you get things right, too.

 

I use Blender just often enough to have to re-learn everything.

 

 

thinker

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