GIMP (photochop) Help

So , I'm trying to customize a buddy's Mercury. I'm trying to figure out how to do multiple circles to do white walls. I understand how to use the select tools. I do not work well with multiple layers. (I don't know how to combine them, yet)

Any quick and dirty tutorial you could give me? Or a easy web link? I need to be spoken to like I'm a five year old.

Thanks in advance

Appleseed.

Let me know if I need to go into more detail or explain something better. Here we go...

Here's my tire:

The first step is to select the outer edge of your first sidewall using the polygonal lasso tool. Here you can see that if you right click on tools that have little arrows at the bottom it brings up more tools.

Select the entire outer edge of where you want the whitewall to stop by clicking along the path. Once you reach the end your last click will close the circle of marching ants marking your selection.

Select Edit>Copy and then click on the New Layer Button.

If your layers window isn't open, you can open it by selecting Window>Layers

Now that you have a new layer paste your copied bit by selecting Edit>Paste
Turn the original layer off by clicking the eye next to the layer in the layer box. Now your commands will only apply to the top (visible) layer.

Select the inner limit of where you want the whitewall to stop using the polygonal lasso tool.

Once your selection is complete and you get your marching ants you can select Edit>Cut and the center section dissappears from this layer.
Select the paint bucket tool. This one sometimes hides behind the gradient tool.

Select your fill color by clicking on the top square.

Place your paint bucket over the area where you selected the whitewall to go and click it. It should fill your selected area with the white color. Turn the background layer back on by clicking the eye nxt to the layer name, but keep the top layer active so that your commands will only apply to the whitewall area and not the whole thing.

Next you are going to adjust the opacity of the white layer. Click on the opacity meter within the layer window.

I found somewhere around 50% looked pretty good.

Then, with the top layer selected you will want to use a blur so the edge doesn't jump out at you. Select Filter>Blur>Blur from the menu.
I didn't think one blur was enough so I repeated the blur.

If you want to group multiple layers in order to turn them on and off together, or move them all as one, then you need to create a new Group by clicking on the New Group Folder in the Layers Window. Drag the layers you want to group into the folder once it's created.


You can also merge layers by clicking the eye next to each layer you want to turn off and then select Layer>Merge Visible. That will collapse all visible layers into one layer. I prefer to use groups because you can pull a layer out or modify it individually later.

Thanks. I'll give it a try. I still fear the layers, though.

Dont have a copy in front of me to look at...

But there is a command called "flatten layers"

It will.... flatten layers... back into a single layer. But there is really no need... When you save as like a jpg or gif or what ever it will be flattened for you.

No need to fear layers, just remember that the top layers are shown on top, and that when ever you want to select something from, or edit a layer you need to select it from the layer window.

Layers are very good to know how to use. They save a lot of time when your editing, because you can draw on top of a picture with out actually modifying it. Any mistakes can be erased with out erasing the actual picture.

Plus with layers come layer masks... which are about the most handy thing ever :D

Do or do not, there is no try Don't fear the layers, layers are berkeleying awesome. You can always turn a layer off if you don't like it and do a step over.

Ok. I forgot to say that the GIMP I'm using is GIMP portable. I haven't updated it in about 18 months, so some of what you have said is different, or doesn't exist.

I've cut and pasted my work onto another layer. Worked alright until I tried to combine the two layers. There is no Layer>Merge Visible. Is that because I didn't create a group?

I ended up copying the image, reopening the original work and pasting the new image. It worked , but I know I'm doing it wrong.