02-02-2018, 03:56 PM
I kind of see what you mean by the black making the entire image a tad darker. You could experiment with some dark gray layers to help "lighten" up the image rather than using a black layer. It may also help with the grain that you are referring to.
Do you still have the original .xcf / project file that you were using to work on your edits? I am not an expert with this, but one of the export settings may be causing the black to go transparent. Like Ofnuts recommended, you could see if the problem would be resolved by exporting with a different extension like png. The image quality may be reserved more than you think; worth a shot since you can always export with a different file extension again!
Do you still have the original .xcf / project file that you were using to work on your edits? I am not an expert with this, but one of the export settings may be causing the black to go transparent. Like Ofnuts recommended, you could see if the problem would be resolved by exporting with a different extension like png. The image quality may be reserved more than you think; worth a shot since you can always export with a different file extension again!