GIMP Book of Layers

Chapter 1: Creating a New Layer in GIMP

Layers are essentially the backbone of GIMP – with every edit or design happening on some kind of layer. There are image layers, text layers, and layers that contain a background color or just transparency (i.e. don’t contain anything and therefor are totally see-through or transparent). In this GIMP Layers how-to article, which is the first part of a multi-article series, I’ll be showing you how to create a new layer using the “Create a New Layer” dialogue box, and explaining all of the features found in this box.

Creating a New Composition With a Background Layer

For starters, you have to either open an image or create a new composition to be able to do anything with layers. For this example, I’ll simply open a new composition by going to File>New. This will give me the option to create a new image.

Under Image Size (denoted by the red arrow in the phototo above), I’ll set the width to 1920 pixels, and my height to 1080 pixels (these are the dimensions for HD). If I click the “Advanced Options” dropdown (denoted by the blue arrow), this will give me even more options.

To keep this tutorial simple, I will keep all of the settings the same. However, I will point out one setting in particular, the “Fill With” setting towards the bottom (denoted by the green arrow in the image). This setting allows you to determine what type of background layer, which will be the first layer in your composition, you will create when the new image is created. The background layer will always be the same size as the composition size you set up in this step.

If I click the dropdown box for the “Fill With” setting (denoted by the green arrow in the image), I get a few options. I can have my background layer color be the same as the current Foreground or Background color I have active (which you can see via the Foreground and Background previews over in the Tool Box), or I can choose pure white, transparency (no background color – just a blank layer), or a pattern (the pattern used will be whatever pattern you currently have active in your patterns dialogue). I’ll choose White as my “Fill With” option and click OK.