I would like to add one more picture.
From the hippie market in rio Brazil.

Doron.

Lol, that's cute.

Thank you for the tut, Molly!

Nice job Liz-ard

liz-ard: i agree with molly - i think you did a good job on the blurrier parts of the image, i always find it hard to mask them off and make it look natural.

Thanks Molly and AnMal!!

decided to do another one...I had to be careful with this one!

liz-ard: it looks lovely with that strong orange against the greyscale and again - nice job masking off the blurrier parts.

Thank you AnMal!

So Molly, I have a question: is there an easy way to put in a background texture fill without having to do minute detail? Right now, the only way I know to do this is to outline the object in question with the free select, then fill in with whatever I want as a background. Sorry, I know this is not part of your tut, but thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. I tried to fill in texture after using the white mask, but there were some obvious (to me) mistakes with "going over the lines". Thanks for any help!

I love layer masks! I started learning more about graphics and GIMP this summer. I use the program to learn about designing and creating things. I did this for my Happy Acres blog:

Layer Mask
Tools that it really fun to work with.

Thanks Doron.

doronf: that image is lovely, really using the technique to its fullest. and i agree, layer masks are a fun tool to play with .

This is my favorite tool.
You can play with the effect in many different ways.
Thanks
Doron 4Z7FED.

Brilliant tutorial! Really shows, in a hands on way, what exactly the layer masks are used for.