GIMP Version: 2.8.14
Operating System: Linux
GIMP Experience: Basic Level

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1. Is the gimp registry still a valid place to go, or should users go elsewhere?

2. I haven't used channels much. Has anyone run into a tutorial about channels that they liked --- how to use them, when to use them, etc.

3. Fuzzy Select Tool > Select by option: what does it do and why would you use it?

4. I've always saved my selections as paths, not channels, and painted with white or black. Why would a user save the selection as a channel, and do other colors (i.e., gray) do anything. I feel like there is so much more I could do with the Quick Mask and/or channels but I haven't reached that level yet.

I have been reading the gimp manual and I'm on page 103 (all about selections) of the Gimp Bible book :-)

1) The GR is pretty much frozen... Only the "old" users can add to it. Still a good source for old stuff.

2) AFAIK they are mostly used to save selections and layer masks. Select>Save to channel is very much under-used by people IMHO, in particular when doing complex selections.

3) You can select by other criteria than a blend of colors. For instance you can select by value to get a dark background, even if it contains several colors, or select by Hue i you have a red flower over a green background. This lets you use a rather large threshold to get all the red without risking to include green.

4) The path is only an approximation of the selection mask. So you lose some info there, and lose some more info when doing the Select>From>Path. In addition you can have partial selection (the grays in the selection channel)(*) that the path will not preserve, since the path is really the locus that separates pixels with over 50% selection from those with under 50%.

(*) Selection and transparency are really the same thing. Basically, what you do is applied to a complete copy the layer, then the selection is applied as an opacity mask to the result, and that result is merged into the original channel. Fully selected pixel are completely covered by edited copy, but partially selected pixels are a blend of the original version and the edited version.

IIRC, Esper knew about and used channels a lot, so if you look for tutorials by Esper in the Gimp Chat tutorial section, you might find some good info about using channels.

All very helpful. Thank you. I did an advanced search for channels, user Esper, in the forum Gimp Tutorials. Lot's to read. And I visited gimp-forum.net. I'm trying to be selective in the tutorials I choose, because I walk through each one, step by step. Time really flies, before I know it the day is gone :-) I have a hardcopy gimp book. I thought it would keep me more focused and follow a logical learning path. :-) There are tons of gimp tutorials on youtube. Any that you like? I try to stick to tutorials that use 2.8, but I'll view 2.6. It's hard at this stage to know the quality. I figure I'll learn different and better ways the more I work on images.

Three things that make a tutorial more helpful:
1. For me, the first thing I like to see in a tutorial is a before and after image or the end-result, so I know what I'm aiming for and to see if I've done something like it already.
2. Naming all layers (and channels, paths) and referencing the name when working on it, is super helpful. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what I'm suppose to do where and examining snapshots of gimp (if provided) in tutorials to see what layer is highlighted.
3. All resources are available or linked to at the beginning, so the tutorial is hands-on and can be repeated by the reader. There is nothing more disappointing than getting invested in a tutorial only to find out you are missing pieces and can't finish it. The book I'm going through now, is thick and the images are in black and white and grainy. It is dry :-), and so far no hands-on. Nothing like reading about graphics and not doing any of it. ;-)

I see the gimp.org tutorials have been redone by Pat David. I found Pat's site (pixls.us) when I was going through some of Debi Dalio tutorials (clownfishcafe.blogspot.com). She often said she was using his technique or a version of it. I like that she updates her tutorials and stamps them with a date. Although I think she is spending time elsewhere these days. She has an alignment/distribution tutorial (a Tool I've never used in Gimp), and she is basically creating a checker board of repeated colors. I'm following along, and she puts the layers that make up a row in a Layer Group only to find out that the alignment tool won't work on the layers in a Layer Group. I did enough rows, not all, to get experience with layers and the Alignment Tool. I document what I do and keep a xcf file.

Someone reported a kde/plasma bug against the gimp icon. It was just a rectangle, not wilber. The tech response was please supply one. If I was better at Gimp I would have supplied them with one. Next time ;-)