[ Thanks to Michael J. Hammel for this
link. ]
“In part three of this four part series I’m going to cover
blend modes and layers, imaging for the Web, and Image Enhancement
issues.“
“Working with layers is key to any Gimp project. I’m going to
use my own terminology here. An image is a single picture which may
include multiple layers but exists within a single XCF formatted
file. A project is a set of one or more XCF files used to generate
a final, flattened image. The distinction is important when working
on a project. You need to be able to design the project based on
distinct sections which may or may not overlap in the final image.
By reducing the final image to these smaller sections, and working
on them separately, you increase the performance you cansqueeze out
of a lower end system. Each section is an image that has a smaller
width and height (usually) than the final version so you won’t chew
up as much memory. The final version will then consist of just a
few layers, the composites of the images you made for the smaller,
distinct sections. Smaller images, less memory. Fewer layers, less
memory. It’s just good project management.”
“So you’ve broken your project into smaller, more manageable
pieces. That’s a good plan. The next thing is to think about your
ability to make changes easily. Without a doubt, some client will
at some point ask you to make some minor change long after you
thought you were done with the project. It happened to me while
working on the Linux Journal August 1999 issue. I was able to make
the changes fairly easily because of three things I did in my
design: breaking the project into smaller images, saving the XCF
versions of these smaller images, and using layer masks and layer
blend modes instead of making actual changes to pixels in the
image.”