I've got several photos of items (lots of white with color images) that are taken with a backdrop.  I want to make the background transparent.  Initially I used a white backdrop which was marginal.  Then I switched to a light blue which wasn't much better.  Finally I changed to a dark Navy blue background and I figured the high contrast would be ideal.  Unfortunately I can't get rid of the background compleltely.
   My first attempt was with Fuzzy Select and when I clicked on the background it turned the entire image red.  Playing with all the settings (anti alias, draw mask, alpha channel) I just couldn't get it to work.  Never could get the Feather to activate.  So then I switched to Select by Color and that worked - mostly.  The problem is that the backdrop, which is a solid color, has some minor undulations which cause slight variations in color density.  The result is that some of these variations leave a shimmering effect which when saved aren't completely transparent.  There's still lots of contrast between the image and background so that baffles me.  I'm using Inkscape as the graphics editor and I'm a real amateur with Gimp so I could use come help.

Hi,

I've been using Gimp since 1996 for various purposes, but in recent years it's mostly for processing screenshots - capturing, combining, drawing arrows or text on them. In 2000 I bought Grokking the Gimp, and a lot of what was there still applies to the latest Gimp 2.

All was generally fine until a year ago, when I could no longer take screenshots because my Linux distribution moved to Wayland. I had the workaround of using a different tool and copying the result to Gimp.

With the move to Gimp 3, things got significantly worse. For one thing, now I also cannot scan images, because the xsane driver that worked with Gimp 2 is 8 years old and nobody maintains it (though there seem to be some workaround, but I didn't really need it, so I didn't check).

But the reason I'm writing this is that I cannot figure how to use the rectangular selection effectively. In the good old days, you could select a rectangle and copy it, and when you pasted it, you'd have a rectangle with whatever you copied on a temporary layer and that was that. Then you could move this temporary layer and change its opacity (which helped me align images) and then you'd choose to either transform the temporary layer into a new, real layer or "anchor" it to the leer below. Now when I paste it's not just my selection (because it's surrounded by transparency so the new layer is the exact size of the layer I copied from) and I need to keep switching between the Select and Move tools, because there is no longer a temporary layer. It also makes Fit Canvas to layers pretty pointless to me, as my layers are way too big (unless I use the crop tool, which I didn't need until now).

I couldn't find anything relevant in the manual or using the search engines and when I ask the AIs they either tell me that nothing changed regarding selection in Gimp 3, or that I must use the crop tool or other things that take more time than the equivalent Gimp 2 ways. Still, I can't imagine being the only one facing these issues, so I wonder if there is some guide describing the Gimp 3 equivalents of the basic Gimp 2 features.

Thank you!

If script-fu are placed in the "scripts" folder, they have a habitual and predictable behavior.

If I modify them and put them in "plugins" they have another one, changes must be added on purpose and sometimes you don't understand the mistake.

BUT if I put them in "plugins" Gimp 3.0 official appimage overcomes some problems that crash the script engine.

Now comes the problem, exactly like to be or not to be, I have to continue to use the "scripts" folder, or I have to arm myself and solve the problems it causes by moving them to "plugins".

I wouldn't want my "to be or not to be" to be Mel Brooks' film.

please share list of keyboard shortcuts for GIMP.

Last night I tried to install the bimp gimp plugin tool, but the make failed since a missing tool "gimptool" could not be found on my system. I also tried to see if the yast2 software tools could locate this tool, but to no success.

Now whenever I start up gimp, I hit a delay around 30 seconds or so then the following message appears:

gui_dbus_name_lost: the name "org.gimp.GIMP.UI" could not be acquired on the bus.

running gimp with the --verbose option shows:

INIT: gimp_initialize
INIT: gimp_real_initialize
gui_dbus_name_lost: the name "org.gimp.GIMP.UI" could not be acquired on the bus

And the about 20-30 sec delay is occurring here.

Since I have removed and reinstalled all the gimp software using the software manager, I don't believe that this problem is with the gimp software itself but lies somewhere else.

Is this the correct forum to ask this question? Or perhaps try a GNOME forum?

The 30 second delay is not tolerable, especially when I had over 24 gimp photos to redo just this morning.

Thanks for suggestions.

Just a heads up that if a Script-fu script is implemented as a V3 plug-in you can edit the script file whilst GIMP is running - you don't have to restart GIMP for the changes to take effect. This has been possible with Python scripts for a long time but disappeared when the Refresh Scripts menu option was dropped some time ago. It certainly makes debugging Script-fu scripts much less frustrating :-)

V3 .scm scripts that are plug-ins go into folders with the same names as the first part of the .scm file name (i.e. the part before .scm). These folders then go into the GIMP plug-ins folder, not the scripts folder.

Don't forget to delete the original version of the .scm file from scripts - GIMP complains if there is a plug-in and a script version at the same time.

The following links are useful when making .scm plug-ins - note in particular the use of 

I select an area, and then with bucket fill I try to fill it with a color I selected before so I apply bucket fill inside the selected area. Sounds simple right? Nope. That is too easy for gimp. It doesn't fill. What am I missing?

I selected an area . Now I hit escape but the walking ants dont go away. How to tell Gimp that I am done with that selection and I dont want that selection anymore in my life. It just wont go away.

I select a portion of my image. How can i move JUST that part? After I select, I click move and try to drag it but it drags the whole thing and the selection seems to just float and remain where it is. This is very counterintuitive.

If I try to use bucket fill the bucket cursor carries a circle with a slash through it, and I cannot fill the selected layer. I have ensured that the layer I wish to fill is selected, is not locked, and have tried various places withing the area of the layer. In the attached screenshot, I wish to fill the layer called "Background" with another colour. Please see the screenshot. Thank you.

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