Deselect Not Working in 2.10

[Phasmatrope]

(10-20-2023, 06:11 AM)PixLab Wrote:

(10-20-2023, 04:59 AM)Phasmatrope Wrote: Hello, I apologize if this comes across as a necro-post, I am fairly new to Gimp/photo manipulation in general (I have some experience with Photoshop but like most hate the subscription model; so far I've mainly just been using Gimp to Fill colors). Currently, I'm just trying to bring a bunch of 8.5 x 11" prints prints (some are vertically oriented, some horizontal) to make a large-size collage (24 x 36") that I'm hoping to print and frame.

So, I've basically just been dragging and dropping the photos from my desktop onto this canvas one-by-one, then trying to scale them to match... and that said, I REALLY wish there was some sort of way that I could select and scale them as a group?? (Like select all the vertically-oriented ones and scale them to 3 x 5, then select all the horizontal ones and do the same...??).

So, I'm basically having to drop them in, they're huge and cover all others, then I have to scale them down.... and yet then I can only seem to select the one that JUST came in, nothing before...it has the same empty squares on every corner, in the middle of every frame, with an empty one with the cross through it in the middle (and trying to Deselect it go back to scaling another doesn't work).

Anyway I read over these other entries, and am not really sure why floating selections apply, or Layers for that matter??

Regardless, I already tried reinstalling Gimp like Dratgat said (2.10) and that didn't seem to make a difference. There's got to be an easier way to do this, but if nothing else, why am I seemingly unable to jump between/Deselect what I'm bringing in??

When you said "select, selection" are you speaking about a select tool or Ctrl+A?
If so, that does not look like the right way to resize your layers.

If all portrait and landscape pictures have the same size, this is how I will do it to resize massively

Create a new image, then in the layers' dialog AKA layers' stack, create 2 groups, 1 for portrait, 1 for landscape
Like this:


Then from your OS file explorer drag directly all the portrait photo directly INSIDE the portrait group, same for landscape pictures
Like this: (stay on the Ctrl key on your keyboard to select multiple photos then drag the whole)


Then
1 select the folder "portrait" inside the layers' dialog by clicking on it,
2  click on the scale toolin the toolbox
3 - 4 -5 check those in the Tool Options dialog
6 drag the handle down to re-size the whole group


Do the same for the landscape pictures

Hello, sorry for the delayed reply here, but see... that's just it... as I mentioned, I've really just used Gimp for Filling colors. That's it. No layers have been involved in this attempt at a project. 

Again, my limited photo/graphic manipulation skill is overlapping and moving around images on Mac's Preview (not exactly the most complicated graphics editor, or even viewer, for that matter), and using its Instant Alpha feature to isolate items and remove what's around them. That's been my introduction to photo manipulation for not wanting to learn on Adobe's subscription model. And thanks to the classes I've taken in Photoshop, while I'm aware of the concept of Layers, I've yet to utilize/understand them in the context of Gimp.

And I know that as easy as it is to resize images for a mere 8.5x11" collage using Preview, if I wanna do a larger 18x24, or in my case, 24x36"+ one, I gotta go with either Photoshop or Gimp, so here we are.

So all that said, what do YOU advise, for creating a large-size montage, where you're trying to import multiple images (like 28) and get them as close as possible to the same size to fit to something for print?? 

Are you saying that I have to familiarize myself with Gimp's concept of layers, and open everything individually (instead of dragging them all to the same canvas/layer, as I have--seemingly mistakenly??-- been)? I'd like to think this is simpler than it sounds, like I could say, ok, all you vertically-oriented 8.5x11s, let's shrink you ALL at once, then see if I can EQUALLY shrink all the horizontal 8.5x11s, and keep reducing you so there's as little collage overlap as possible... you see what I'm getting at, my grasp of Gimp, layers, and math limits me here. 

Call this a teach a man/gimp/noob to fish kinda deal I guess... :/