Making an image semi-transparent… Or is that semi-opaque?

[HavingTooMuchFun]

(09-25-2018, 05:36 PM)Ofnuts Wrote:

(09-25-2018, 04:41 PM)HavingTooMuchFun Wrote: What I’m trying to do is make an entire image SHEER, in other words see-through, but with all the colors maintained. Using the opacity control on the layers palette it looks like I’m doing that, the gray checkerboard appears underlying the image, but when I try to copy or clone that image onto another one, it goes on completely opaque, no matter how low I take the opacity! BUT, if I save the image as a PNG, and re-import it, then it can be copied or cloned and it IS sheer.

What is the type of the image you are copying to? In color-indexed images (GIF), opacity isn't progressive.

You must’ve posted right when I did, I didn’t even see you there, sorry! I don’t know what type the image is, or how to find that out… whatever Gimp gave me when I created a new one? Everything I’m saving is JPG or PNG, so I’m guessing it’s one of those. It's all RGB.

Rich:

I don't know what is up with Gimp... once I start using a brush, EVERY tool meant to draw will be that brush instead until I restart the program...??!!!!

All my images are RGB.

"Sheer" is like stained glass; you can see through it, but it has color.

To copy, I click "copy" on the first image and then click "paste" on the second image. To clone, I click "clone," command-click where I'm cloning from and move the cursor over where I'm cloning to. I'm getting a result as if an opaque image had been copied or cloned over a second image, 100% of the time...  until I export and re-import, and then it acts in the expected way for a "semi-transparent image."

Please DON’T go back to masks, LOL! I have no idea what they are, or how to use them, I’ve never used them, and I’m not using them for this project. All I’m talking about here is doing color to alpha, which 95% of the time produces a clear and colorless area, like a window in your house, and 5% of the time produces a transparent but COLORED area, like stained glass. If this is something that I’M doing, then please tell me how I’m doing it so that I can duplicate it! :-)

I’m using Gimp 2.8.22, RGB for every image, and these are the results I'm getting. Maybe some obscure setting somewhere?