08-23-2023, 08:01 PM
Thanks for your input - it led me to a solution.
It seems that a condition for the transfer of transparency (copying the alpha channel) is that the destination has to be transparent. I was able to correctly copy the images if I cut holes in the background of the montage of the appropriate size revealing the transparent underlayer and then used Edit->Paste into Selection. I didn't need to add a mask to the original image - a simple copy did the trick.
If I'm right about this condition, shouldn't there be a note about it somewhere? I wasted many hours yesterday and today over this (to me, surprising) problem.
It seems that a condition for the transfer of transparency (copying the alpha channel) is that the destination has to be transparent. I was able to correctly copy the images if I cut holes in the background of the montage of the appropriate size revealing the transparent underlayer and then used Edit->Paste into Selection. I didn't need to add a mask to the original image - a simple copy did the trick.
If I'm right about this condition, shouldn't there be a note about it somewhere? I wasted many hours yesterday and today over this (to me, surprising) problem.