Amy & Leah's Gimptastic Tuts: How to Use Masks in Gimp

Monday, October 17, 2011

How to Use Masks in Gimp

7:43 PM | Posted by Amy&Leah | Edit Post

This tutorial is of my own creation and any resemblance to any other tuts is purely coincidental. This tutorial is for personal use only, using it for monetary gain is against our TOU's. Using masks in Gimp is a little tricky. Here is a tutorial on how to use them. I am not going to add this to a tag, but if you would like to add a mask to a tag you need to move the layers to the bottom. Supplies: Mask 1 from our blog HERE Here we go! -Go to File>New and make the canvas size 600x600 pixels. Press okay. This part won't be needed if you are adding a mask to a tag. -Add a new layer by clicking the folded paper icon at the bottom of your layer box.

Using your bucket fill tool fill the new layer with color of choice. I am using black. You can also do this with a paper from a scrap kit if you'd like. To do that, just open the paper and move the paper layer to the bottom in your layer box and skip adding a new layer and filling it with color. -Open your mask and make sure it is above the black layer in the layer box. You may get a pop up box like the one below. Just press convert.

-Make your black layer (or paper layer) active and right click the layer in the layer box. Click add layer mask. Make sure black (full trancparency) is checked. Click add.

-Make sure there is a white outline on the 2nd box by your black layer in the layer box. If not, just click on it the layer box.

-Make your mask layer active. Go to Edit>Copy. Hide this layer by clicking the little eye next to the layer in the layer box.

-Make your black layer (or paper layer) active. Go to Edit>Paste. Now you will have a floating section in your layer box. You need to anchor it. To do this click the little anchor icon at the bottom of the layer box.