Haeleth's Journal: How I tried to love GIMP, part 2: Layers

So, GIMP. I have this image with lots of layers. I want to create a new image that contains three of them, another that contains a different three, and so on. Are you going to be helpful?

In every other graphics package under the sun, this is a trivial thing to do. You select the layers you want, and copy them into a new image. In GIMP? You select the layers you want, and... no, wait, you can't, because GIMP only lets you select one layer at a time. Let me repeat that, because I couldn't believe it at first either, but it's true. GIMP can only have one active layer at a time. You can only operate on one layer at a time. You cannot select two layers and apply a filter to both at once.[1]

There is one limited capability it does have: you can "link" layers. This isn't the same as the grouping capability that every other graphics package provides - "linking" in GIMP simply means that you have set a flag on a layer. When you move a layer that has the linking flag set, all the other layers with the linking flag move as well. (If you then want to move a different set of layers, you have to unlink every layer in the first set, then link the second set.) It's the clunkiest interface I've ever seen to this kind of feature. And it only seems to work for moving - not for scaling, not for filters, not for copy-and-paste.

It seems the only provided way to do what I want -- to create a new image containing several layers from the old image -- is to copy one layer, paste it into the new image, select the second layer, copy, paste, select the third layer, copy, paste...

(I take a deep breath and count to 10 at this point. I am determined not to conclude that GIMP sucks until I have finished giving it a proper chance.)

Okay. I'm a programmer. GIMP is programmable. So I give myself a crash course in script-fu, which is comfortingly similar to Emacs LISP,[2] and an hour or so later[3] I have 50 lines of Scheme that, when invoked, create a new image containing the layers from the old image that had the linking flag set. I am now able to do what I wanted in a relatively quick and easy way.[4]

But I'm a programmer. Most people who work with graphics are not programmers. Tell the average designer that you're suggesting she should use a package that will only do what she needs after she's spent a good hour hacking away at Scheme code, and she'll laugh in your face.

Why on earth is basic functionality like this not built in? How is an average artist supposed to be productive when they can't even operate on multiple layers at once without writing a program to do it?

Maybe I should ask these questions on a GIMP mailing list. It's been a while since anyone's told me I'm a dumbass.

[1] Apparently there are plugins that do provide a limited capability to apply filters to more than one layer at a time, but I'm blowed if I can find one.
[2] But only vaguely, it turns out. This is Free Software; I guess consistency is too much to hope for.
[3] The actual programming only took about five minutes. The remainder of the time was mostly spent trying to find some script-fu documentation, which basically doesn't exist. No, GIMP fans, tutorials are not documentation.
[4] Script-fu is an example of a thing I like about GIMP. Now I've figured out its quirks and how to make the most of the very limited documentation, I have to admit it's already saved me as much time as I lost learning it. Shame the REPL sucks, but there are some promising-looking emacs packages that might fix that.