The wife is working on creating a cover for one of the books she wants to release soon. She has a starry background and an image of a girl’s face she wants on top of it. The problem comes in that the image of the girl’s face has a background behind it that conflicts with the other background image.
If you’ll indulge me, my Hordeling, I’m putting the steps to create a mask in GIMP 2.10 here so I can refer back to them again if I need them later. If it helps you out as well, all the better.
- Open the background image in GIMP.
- In a new layer, open the image with the girl’s face. Right click on the layer in the layer panel, then click on ‘Add Alpha Channel’. If the ‘Add Alpha Channel’ option is greyed out, that means there is already an alpha channel on the image and you’re good to go.
- Hide the bottom layer by clicking the eye icon next to the layer panel.
- Use the freehand select tool. Carefully go around the outer edge of the part of the image (the face) that you want to keep, then go all the way to the edge of the image, and go around the edges until you have gotten back to your starting point. Make sure you end on the same point that you started with. There should be a blinking line of the area you want to get rid of.
- Hit the Delete button. The area you selected should disappear.
- Click the eye icon on the bottom layer and your masked top image should display against the background.
- Depending on the image you are using to create the mask, you may have to repeat this process several times to completely delete the background around the part of the image you want to keep.
So, future Me, those are the steps you need to create a mask in GIMP 2.10. You’re welcome.
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