SOOOOOOOOOOO close in cleaning up an image

[977]

hi all,

i am sooooooooooooo close in cleaning up an image.....something minor must be keeping me from moving on. i could please use your help

i'm following this tutorial here. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0R3XvrsC3c

if you could please watch a few seconds at 9:47....see how is paintbrush is cleaning it up? when i do it, its just painting black on there (my settings for paintbrush are the same as is, i've checked them a million times, and everything up to this point i've matched his results so it has to be something minor) 

i want to throw my computer out the window right now! i'm so close and this is the most important part.

maybe he clicked on something? the problem with tutorials is that if they click without saying they clicked, its impossible to tell ya know?

thank you for your help


bonus question - have you all heard of this dude before? is he good? should i rely on him for future tutorials? he was honest in his tutorial - he said theres a million ways to accomplish this but this method is the most straightforward

[Ofnuts]

Because the active "drawable" is the layer and not the layer mask, so you paint black on the layer instead of painting black on the mask which would make the layer transparent.

To make the mask the target of your paint actions, click on the mask thumbnail in the Layers list, this makes the mask thumbnail be outlined in white while the layer one is outline in black. You can also check in the status area at the bottom of the image window that it says {layer name} mask and not just {layer name}. To revert to layer painting, click on the layer thumbnail.

And yes, DMD tutorials are good as far as tutorials go, he is one of the few who knows what he is talking about. But as you see, tutorials are like direction on a paper, you miss one intersection and you get lost

[rich2005]

...and in pictures, the active "part" the image or the layer-mask has a white border in the layers dock. Click on the layer icon to change. I bumped the size of the icons up to show it better.

   

..as a 50 second animation. https://i.imgur.com/WEMaCtk.mp4

DM tutorials ? Here I disagree with Ofnuts, "The Dude" (sic) can throw in not so good advice, His example, very straight forward, FG select -> Path -> back to selection is overkill. Trace a path first, you are going to correct it anyway as you go along or Straight from selection to layer mask.   What you do need and not in Gimp are a couple of brushes, a better fuzzy brush and small elliptical for cleaning up tight corners.

... just my opinion but it all comes with practice, anyway

[977]

thank you both for your prompt response. unfortunately it looks like i'm going to have give up. i don't understand any of the terms you used (i don't know what a layer is nor a mask, i'm a monkey following a tutorial)

please don't try to explain those terms. gimp is overhelming for a monkey like me.

i will give it one last shot and respectfully respond to your ideas. if you could please go to that tutorial at 9:26, i think thats what you 2 are trying to tell me. i've clicked on the "right one" as he has.

when i click on the LEFT one, then use paintbrush, its painting BLACK (which makes sense as the foreground is set to black)

when i click on the RIGHT one, then use paintbrush, its painting TRANSPARENT

i think this is what you 2 are trying to tell me

still not solved;
even though my paintbrush settings are identical to his, my paintbrush is HUGE compared to his, how could this be. maybe thats the issue.

so now its erasing (aka making my foreground transparent) such a big chunk of my foreground (instead of cleaning up the edges like his does at 9:47)

something still isn't right ;(

[Ofnuts]

The Paintbrush tool has a Size slider to set the size of the brush. 

   

For this kind of application it should be set to something small, he is using a 40px brush in an image which is 1920px wide (so about 1/5àtj of the image size), so reduce this size if your image is smaller. You wouldn't use the same brush size to paint the Statue of Liberty or a tin soldier, would you?

[977]

hi

thanks for your prompt response. but i'm following his paintbrush settings and it doesn't look the same. oh well

so i set the paintbrush size to a 1 (yes a ONE)

and the result is the same....its just making the foreground transparent whenever i brush. it should be cleaning up the edges like the tutorial at 9:47 but it doesn't ;(

this sucks

[Ofnuts]

(05-15-2024, 06:55 PM)977 Wrote: hi

thanks for your prompt response. but i'm following his paintbrush settings and it doesn't look the same. oh well

so i set the paintbrush size to a 1 (yes a ONE)

and the result is the same....its just making the foreground transparent whenever i brush. it should be cleaning up the edges like the tutorial at 9:47 but it doesn't ;(

this sucks

Cleaning up the edges is painting the mask near the edges to make whatever remains of the background transparent. It's not a miracle thing where you paint anywhere and this cleans the edges. This is essentially an advanced eraser (because you can unerase easily).