Anybody here have GIMP experience?

[Red Pins]

Basically that.  Although my latest project is seeing some progress, having somebody who works with it available to answer questions would really help.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Some, what's up?  (Also I think this should be in Off Topic)

[Red Pins]

Ugh. Yes.  Well, they’ll move it.

I’m redoing the standard RS into something that I can play a Lance or Star at a time with.  I’m taking a blank sheet, putting it in Word, cutting it up into its component pieces (and expanding some, shrinking others, whatever) by cropping it, and moving it across to GIMP.

I JUST figured out how to expand it without losing definition, but it took days of experimenting.

So, next, I have a rough sheet worked out, the only question is if I can layer the crit spaces around the blanks for the armour and IS values, or if I have space for a shrunken, standard crit table.  Can I put the armour image down first, then layer the value spaces and crit placements on top?  How hard is it to layer,anyway?

[ANS Kamas P81]

Basically what I do is just copy whatever segment I need into the buffer, then hit paste; in the layers window it'll show as Floating Selection.  Right click that, hit "new layer" and it'll pop up as a new layer.  Then just use the up and down buttons at the bottom of the layers window to move each one up and down.

[Red Pins]

Okay.  I'm good for now, but I'll have more questions later.  Here's a sample of the sheet so far.  I'm having to start over, the armor image with the bubbles removed, the _____  (_____) spaces for armor/IS, and the crits around the diagram will come next.  I'm really hoping I might be able to fit a couple tables as well.

[Red Pins]

Ok, this is a half-way image of a prospective new 4-unit layout.  Things like the margins are from Word, I haven't figured out how to have the sheet go the edges of the paper yet.  The finished RS diagram was too distorted to use, but took out the bubbles to put a pair of small lines (one in brackets) beside each location.  I'm not sure if I want to go with the same Crit Table to save time and effort, or if I want to expand the image slightly horizontally and put the individual locations beside the arms, etc.  I'd have to layer them to go over and around the image, though.

Opinion?

[Red Pins]

Okay, this is an annoying one.  I go to rectangle select, and try to cut, using the shortcut, ctrl-X.  Up to this point, it cut out the circles and left the white sheet I was working on, but now, its a solid black square.  I think Im cutting the layer or something, but the instructions aren't clear.  Got any ideas?  Because I'm stumped.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Betting you've got no alpha channel (transparency) and your current background color is black.  Select your layer on the Layer window, then hit the Layer menu in the main window.  There's an Add Alpha Channel in there somewhere, that'll let you cut transparency.

(I use a little older version of Gimp and they changed some of the controls around, but that should be what you're looking for.)

[Red Pins]

...Every word was english; but I don't get it.  I'm getting concerned - the older trial attempts have it too, now.   :-[  I right-click, go to Layer, then what?
*edit-Ok, it took two hours, but I reset the filter on a test screen, got a white backdrop again, copy-pasted an image, and managed to rectangular select then cut the area, without getting the black void.  So, went back into the deleted files and got the new Alpha image back, tested, and it works.

My God - this thing is touchy.  I think it was trying to get the hard eraser to work, causing all this.  Thanks for the help!