How To Use Layers In GIMP For Beginners

hello Chris Parker here and today we're going to learn all about layers and how to use them in in fact I want you to participate in this tutorial it's going to be awesome so how are you going to participate well you're going to find the file I created just for you in the description below so go ahead find that download it open it up in and we're going to take a look at that file in just a second and we're going to go through that particular file and learn how to use layers in but first I want to demonstrate in our real world how you can use layers because yes you can use layers in the real world as well and then what you learn here you can then transfer to your digital world in and apply that same knowledge but first we're going to Define what a layer is so we're all on the same page so let's go ahead and take a look at what a layer actually is so a layer is a sheet quantity or thickness of material typically one of several covering a surface or body all right so that means pretty much anything that we can draw on paint on we can use as a layer or it is a layer so a photographic piece of paper is a layer I have a canvas Gallery wrap right here of a couple that I shot so this would be considered a layer you could draw on a wall and that would be considered a layer you can draw and paint on wood so pretty much anything you can think of can be used as a layer so let's take a look at this canvas Gallery wrap and let's say we take some paint and we cover up this content that is written right here and then we take whatever we want to use a pencil maybe some paint and a paintbrush and we want to right in our couple's name so maybe something like Mr and Mrs Smith or something else whatever their name is so let's say we rate all that information on the canvas Gallery itself then we present it to the client and they're like um that's not our name or maybe you misspelled it and you're like all right well now I gotta start over because I applied that information directly on the canvas so that becomes permanent because we don't have an undo button here in the real world like we do in the digital world so I have to start over Okay so that's applying content on a layer incorrectly what we want to do is we want to use multiple layers to put that content on in case we make a mistake and we need to go back and adjust it or change it or delete it or whatever the case may be for the artwork that we're trying to create so let me give you another example back in the 80s when I started off as a graphic designer yes I am that old what I would do is I would draw out my design concept on a piece of paper then I would present it to the client for their approval or any type of feedback that they may have based on that particular design and then I would have to redraw it if they changed their mind about something maybe they didn't want their product on the right side maybe they want on the left maybe they want the text to be in a different shape or a different location or in this case I misspelled the product name so even before I show the client I have to fix this and I have to restart from scratch because I applied everything on the initial layer or on one layer so as I continued making this fundamental mistake over and over again I finally realized that I should be putting all these different elements on different pieces of paper or different layers so what I did was I would create my initial design but I would place things on different layers so I have my main content here and then another piece of content over here and then I have on this particular layer here shading for that content and then I would put my titles on a different piece of paper as well that way if the client said I don't like that title anymore let's change it it would be easier to just change this layer or this piece of paper versus everything so that's how I would use or did use layers in the real world all right one more quick thing before we dive into and take a look at how we can use layers in the digital world and that is even though I'm showing you a lot of graphic design type of examples this also applies to anybody that is just doing photo editing we want to do our editing on separate layers because if you do a lot of different edits and you apply all that on one layer and then you decide I don't like how this is turning out well you're going to have to start over from scratch now if you save that file with all those edits and you come back tomorrow next week next year and you're like oh that edit is horrible well if you didn't save the original then you ruined it and you can never go back to the original so we always want to edit our images and any edits we apply whether it's adjusting the exposure adjusting the contrast or maybe we're just doing a conversion to black and white we want to make those adjustments on separate layers that way we have an option to go back to the original as needed all right so let's go ahead and jump into here and make sure you have that file open here it is it's a landscape and we have two layers so if we take a look at our layers panel over here I have a layer 1 and a layer two and just real quick if the interface that I'm showing you right now looks different from yours that's because I've customized the interface from my own personal preference if you don't know how to customize your interface and you would like to learn how to customize it go ahead and take a look in the description below for a tutorial about how to customize your interface all right so let's take a closer look at these layers so we can see an image here of this landscape and we can also see there is some information in the layer above but it's not visible on this document at this time and that's because I have that layer turned off and if we take a look to the left of layer one here we have a little icon right here it kind of looks like an eye so when you see this particular icon that lets you know that that particular layer is not hidden or it's visible if you click on it it will turn that layer off click in that area again and it will turn it back on so let's go ahead and turn on Layer Two just go ahead and click right here and now our second layer is visible now just like I had mentioned previously in the real world we have a lot of different types of elements or layers that we can use canvas we can even paint on glass wood whatever the case may be the same thing with we can use different types of layers to create our Creative Vision or whatever it is we're trying to create so right now these two layers have paint on them or pixels so we're painting with pixels and and each layer has pixels on them now if you take a look at Layer Two we have some transparency around it so that means there's no paint or no pixels on the outer parts of this graphic element right now so that allows the layer below it to show through now if it was a solid color around the edges then we wouldn't be able to see the layer below it so let me show you how that works because we can actually rearrange our layers based on what we're trying to achieve and sometimes we're going to want to rearrange the layers according to whatever it is we want to achieve and we can do that by coming down here and clicking on this icon here to move a layer up and this one down we're going to move layer one up so make sure that layer 1 is selected just click right next to the name and it should have a dark color around the this area right here whereas this one does not have that so it's showing via highlight which one is selected so if we come down here and click on this Arrow it moves that layer up and now because layer one has paint or pixels covering the entire document we can't see the layer below it but just like we can in the real world we can adjust or customize the layer in a way to manipulate that particular layer so we can see things below it so what we need to do is we need to change the opacity or the transparency of layer one so if we take a look up here we have a slider it's called opacity and we can click and drag to the left and it lowers the opacity or makes it transparent and then the layers below it become visible so right now we only have one layer below it but it becomes visible let's go ahead and put this back up to 100 we can also move our layers by dragging the actual layer into the position we want it so to do that we're going to click and hold on layer one and then drag your mouse down until you see that white line once you release the layers are rearranged so same thing if we want to move it up click and drag up and you can move it that way as well the other thing we can do is we can move the contents of a layer within the document itself so let's go up to Layer Two and click on it to select it and then we're going to go over to our toolbar and select our move tool which is right here and we also want to go to our tool options to make sure we have the proper settings selected called move the active layer so since we have layer 1 selected we want to move that one and not the other one if we have pick a layer or guide selected then if I click on my image it will move that layer versus the one selected so I want you to try that out on your own for now we're going to go ahead and select move the active layer now if you're not seeing tool options you can go up to Windows dockable dialogs and select tool options from here and then it will add that tool options panel to your right panels all right let's go back to the layers panel and now we're going to click on the graphic and move it anywhere we want I'm just going to move it over here to the top right all right so that's how you move a specific layer within the overall document all right now let's grab our paintbrush which is located right here on our toolbar go ahead and click on that and let's go ahead and change our color as well by coming down here to the foreground color option and clicking on this box so I have black and white right now yours may be different if you've already been playing around in but let's go ahead and click right here to open up our change foreground color and for this I'm just going to select a bright red color click OK and now what we want to do is we want to start painting on the landscape for whatever reason we're just going to click and begin drawing the only problem is it's not applying any paint or any pixels to that layer and it's doing that because why do you think it's doing that that's right because we don't have layer one selected so if you have the wrong layer selected and you're trying to apply something to that layer then it's not going to work so let's select layer one and then you can come over here and begin painting on it all right like I had mentioned previously we do not want to apply our edits directly on a layer unless of course that's what we need to do to achieve the look we want in most cases we want to apply whatever paint or whatever pixels that we're applying on a separate layer so let me show you how to create a new layer so right now if I save this file this red squiggly line is going to be on this layer permanently that's not what I want I want it on a separate layer so that I can customize that layer layer on or remove it if needed so let's get rid of our squiggly line let's go up to edit and select undo paintbrush now we're going to come over here to this icon in the bottom of our layers panel and click on it and that's going to bring up our new layer dialog box and I'm just going to call this paint layer so you can type in your layer name right here and then it's going to add it to the layer for that particular new layer so everything else we're just going to leave at the defaults go ahead and click ok and now we have our new paint layer above layer one now here's another quick tip let's say you wanted a new layer above layer 2 and not above layer one well in that case when we created a new layer I had layer 1 selected so what we need to do is we need to make sure we have the layer selected where that new layer should go above so if I click new now click OK we now have a new layer above Layer Two so I want to delete this layer now so I'm going to come down here and click on my delete this layer icon all right let's make sure we have paint layer selected make sure you have your paintbrush selected and this time go ahead and paint another squiggly line all right we're now working what is known as non-destructively so we're editing our image non-destructively before when we applied it directly to the layer that's called destructive editing now I'm starting to throw out a lot of digital terms you may or may not be familiar with and again if you take a look in the description below I have a list of digital terms that's going to take you to my website with I think there's over 80 or 90 digital terms that you should know as a digital artist and it's going to help you grow as a digital artist and it's going to help you with my tutorials as well because I'm not going to explain those digital terms in detail all the time so you may want to check that out and bookmark it in case you go to additional tutorials that I cover on my channel here so now what we want to do is let's say we made a mistake we can come down here and delete the layer like I showed you previously or we can come up here and turn it off or you can come up here and adjust the opacity of that layer because maybe it was too intense prior so again we want to work non-destructively by creating new layers for everything we're doing whether it's applying paint or pixels text editing whatever the case may be we want to work on new layers I keep repeating this but I see a lot of students making mistakes and they come back and they say where's my edits well if you flatten the file and you applied everything on that original layer then you're going to destroy that original file so we want to get in the habit of using multiple layers to fulfill our Creative Vision all right so I have one more quick tip and that is if you take a look up here we have some lock options so we can lock a specific layer let's grab Layer Two and then click on lock pixels now with your paintbrush try and paint on that layer we can't even though layer 2 is selected we officially locked that layer from being adjusted with additional pixels so this is something you may want to do in case you accidentally choose the wrong layer this is going to prevent you from making mistakes on your artwork we can also lock the position and the size of the layer so let's go ahead and click on this and then go back to your move tool and then try and move the layer you can because you locked that layer in place again that's something that I like to do so that particular layers don't get accidentally moved and then next to that we have lock Alpha channel so let's go back to our paint layer go ahead and click on lock Alpha Channel and this time we're going to go back to our paintbrush again and paint on that layer so again we can't paint on this particular layer because the layer overall is transparent so locking the alpha channel will prevent you from painting anywhere on that layer that has transparency alright so that's just some quick basic tips for using layers and we haven't even scratched the surface yet there's a lot more to learn about layers and we could spend hours and hours on layers alone but this is enough to get you started with your artwork what I recommend is checking out my for beginners playlist to learn more about layers and how to use them not only for adding graphic elements but for properly editing your images so go ahead and check that out it's in the description below as well as right up here so we have a little icon right up here go ahead and click on that and that will take you directly to the playlist now one last quick thing before you leave if you can do me a huge favor and like this video and if you haven't done so already go ahead and subscribe that's it for today thanks for listening and have an awesome day

Channel: GIMP TUT

Views: 17,947

Keywords: gimp, gimp tutorials, gimp for beginners, GIMP 2.10, How to use layers in GIMP, layers in gimp, gimp layers, gimp tutorials for beginners, layers in gimp tutorial, gimp tutorial for beginners, gimp layers tutorial 2.10, how to use layers in gimp 2.10, gimp layers explained, gimp layers basics, layers in gimp 2.10, adding layers in gimp, Adjustment layers in gimp

Id: iWjZ4uk2uEo

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023