more about floating layers

[Espermaschine]

(01-22-2018, 02:47 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: From what I see of clipping mask(*) they are just bitmaps, and as far as I can tell, they are just working like a blend mode, by applying the mask's opacity to the layer above it. Nothing earth shattering...

In Inkscape you put a shape on top of an image, then apply the clip and it gets clipped to the shape. That works with paths but also bitmaps.
It may seem unintuitive but you can work with raster images in Inkscape too.

Quote:As far as I know the paths in Gimp are mostly meant to create selections (filling a selection is just one use).

Yes, but it seems like a design choice by the developers which i dont understand. It seems they just omitted a step on purpose (filled paths).

[rich2005]

(01-22-2018, 01:36 PM)Espermaschine Wrote: I see. Why is it that PS has clipping masks, but Gimp doesnt ? A clipping mask is vector technology, right ?

PS slips a clipping path into jpegs which as far as I know not used by other applications. I suppose because jpeg does not support an alpha channel. It is possible to use gimp and a path to isolate part of an image. Tiff + path as this in Scribus

https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/How_to_I..._text_flow

[Espermaschine]

(01-22-2018, 03:17 PM)rich2005 Wrote: PS slips a clipping path into jpegs which as far as I know not used by other applications. I suppose because jpeg does not support an alpha channel. It is possible to use gimp and a path to isolate part of an image. Tiff + path as this in Scribus

Indeed. I have an image from a PS CD, that says its clipped (to a circular shape). But i cant unclip it.

EDIT: here it is

It opens unclipped in PS, with the clip applied in Gimp and unclippable in Inkscape.

  CRYSTAL.TIF (Size: 512.3 KB / Downloads: 239)