Editing Real Estate Photos

[festus]

All,
I use GIMP to edit raw ambient and flash real estate photos. I have GIMP 2.10.38 loaded onto a Windows 11 system. I have 16 giga-bytes of memory and a very fast processor with over 5000 giga-byes of storage.
When I load, as layers, an ambient and flash photo, select the ambient photo, and select anything from the Colors menu, nothing has an effect on it. When I try editing the flash photo everything from the Colors menu works. I need to edit the ambient photo first.
In order to see if I can correct the situation, I have
- removed any non-CR2 files related to the files I need to edit
- reloaded GIMP
- shutdown the system for a few hours while I cool down
I am open to any suggestions/corrections/modifications that anyone may have.
Thanks,
Festus
.

[zeuspaul]

If you load only the ambient photo can you edit it? What is the extension of the files you are trying to edit?

[festus]

(05-19-2024, 10:02 PM)zeuspaul Wrote: If you load only the ambient photo can you edit it?  What is the extension of the files you are trying to edit?

Thanks for asking. 
If I load the ambient photo only, the Colors selections work. The same goes for the flash photo.
The extension of the files I am trying to edit is CR3 File (.CR3).

Hmmm ... now you have my curiosity up. The loaded file sizes are 24k+ and 25K+ which leads me to wonder if the issue is one of memory. I think I would
have other signs of not having enough memory though.

The other though I have; might it be one of incorrect GIMP settings?

[zeuspaul]

When you select the ambient photo does this mean it's the active layer?

[festus]

(05-20-2024, 07:38 AM)zeuspaul Wrote: When you select the ambient photo does this mean it's the active layer?

Thanks for asking. Yes, it does.

[Ofnuts]

Is the ambient layer the active layer?

I would suspect something like: 

• You load the "ambient" image as a first layer and then add the "flash" image above it,
  
• You make the flash layer invisible, but keep the flash layer the active layer (ie, you forget to set the "ambien" layer as the active layer). 
  
• The Color/Fuzzy selection tools would still work if you have the "Sample merged" option set.
  
• But when you try to apply a change, it goes to the active layer (still the "flash" one), and nothing happens (except a message about an invisible layer) because the layer is not visible.
  

Another possibility is that you save the selection to a  Channel. This make the channel the target of any editing until you select back a layer.

If this is not it, please post a screenshot of the Gimp UI when nothing works, showing the layers list.

[festus]

Thanks for your reply.

Here is what I have discovered today:
 - regardless of the order in which the two file types are loaded, the minute you switch the order of the layers, the color menu selections fail to work on the ambient image.
 - once the color menu selections fail to work, they will not work again even if you shutdown GIMP and reload it. I do not know what GIMP does to allow one to restart the editing process. 
 - regardless of the order in which the two file types are loaded after the color menu selections have failed to work, you can edit the flash image but not the ambient image

So, it seems that changing the order of the images causes problems.


I hope this makes sense and I am not chasing a rabbit down a hole due to my own ignorance.

[Ofnuts]

Can you reproduce the problem on a small example image that you can post here (2MB lilmt on XCF) and or post a screenshot of the GIMP ui when this happens (show Tool options and the layers list).

[PixLab]

(05-22-2024, 09:20 PM)festus Wrote: the color menu selections fail to work on the ambient image.

Usually it's because the image is in Black and white (Grayscale mode), can you check on the top menu Image > Mode > , is it Grayscale or RGB? (put it in RGB if it's Grayscale)
Also the colors menu is limited if a mask is selected, you need to select the layer itself