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

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Hi...Heres a hard one...

I have a drawing of a feather in graphite which is all shades of grey from almost black to white. Because it is a feather the detail is extremely fine (picture a halo of individual hairs..) I have separated the drawing from the background to my satisfaction and have managed to retain a goodly portion of the fine detail which makes the drawing so beautiful. My problem is that I want to color the background around the feather while retaining the shades of grey from light to darkest. (in other words a finely detailed picture of a gray feather on a pink ground) What makes it hard is the following:

a/. there are non-contiguous areas (?) so when I bucket fill the background...it also fills portions of the drawing
b/. if I color to alpha the coloured background layer colours the drawing so a pink makes the drawing shades of pinkish grey although detail preservation is good
c/. If i try to insert a white layer between the transparent drawing and the pink layer which nicely preserves the tones of grey and sorts the non-contiguous areas it makes a hash of the finest details because there is no way any of the select tools can outline the feather with sufficient accuracy to pick up the delicate details so I can accurately create a white under layer.
d/. When i do a simple colour to alpha it strips the drawing of white and I lose masses of fine detail.....ditto all other shades of grey
e/. the whole thing is being reduced in detail ...so loss of detail there too

I think it can only be done with layers......but the selection and fine detail issue is beating me....any ideas?

Hard to tell without at least a sample of the image. Color-to-alpha doesn't lose detail, but it transforms some of the shades of gray into partial transparency, so the result could depend on the kind of background you use.

Post your picture or part of it here. Someone will be able to tell you what to do

If you use colour to alpha, you can regain detail by duplicating the drawing layer so that partially transparent areas become opaque. If this makes any areas too black, simply erase those areas from the top layer.

Yes i agree. I have used this method to bring back detail myself.

OK I gave that a go....good tip......what i ended up doing was..........

a/. duplicate the transparent layer which contains most of the blackish graphite pencils tones
b/. reversed the values so I had a chalky coloured white transparent colour
c/. put that under the blackish grey transparent layer
d/. copied the white layer...did stuff...and then coloured it a bright white and inserted it under b/.

That restored most of the grey tones and stopped the pink showing through except on the background where it is supposed to be...then I duplicated the transparent blackish transparent layer......did more stuff....and then created a new layer which contained all the lightest grey tones which are the whispy bits that are at the end of the feather's extremity and very pixelated (probably because of the way it was seperated from the background to begin with using levels eyedropper - too harsh). Then I blurred all that...made it transparent and inserted it in the appropriate pace in the stack. Its pretty darn good.

Thanks guyshttp://gimpchat.com/posting.php?mod ... &p=210261#