GIMP notes

Differences from Photoshop to know about

The selection and the yellow thingie (the layer boundary)

You're familiar with the back-white-marching-ants selection.

But there's also the black-yellow thing, which can lead to a bunch of frustration/confusion before it is understood. (...especially if this boundary is hidden, which is possible)

It signifies the layer boundary. If you think of layers as transparency/Cel/onion sheets, it's simply the size of that sheet. You can't draw where it isn't.

Makes sense, but regularly it's not big enough - say, after you made the canvas bigger, when you cut-pasted into a new layer, and so on.

Perhaps the simplest option is right-clicking on the layer and choosing "Layer to image size". Note that his will extend the layer's background, though(verify)

See also:

• http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-layer-resize.html

Pasted stuff (Floating selections)

A 'floating selection' is created when you:

• Paste in something
• Do so intentionally via Select → Float (also CtrlShiftL)
• Use transforms like Flip, Shear, Scale, Rotate and Perspective

A Floating selection is effectively a temporary layer - and you can't do anything else with layers while you have one, and there can only be one.

You have a basic choice of:

• Tie the float to a new layer - by creating a new layer now (e.g. using CtrlShiftN)

• Anchor the layer to the current layer
  • with (CtrlH)
  • ...or by clicking outside the floating layer
  • ...or with the anchor icon below the layer list
  • ...or using "Anchor layer" in the floating layers right-click menu

See also:

• http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-selection-float.html