Confession and request for help

[johnvanvliet]

one of the issues is this guide
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=1142
is 8 years old and for a almost antique version of "The gimp 2.2"
6 years ago a full rewrite of gimp was started
gimp 2.6 was a partial rewrite, and the current gimp 2.8 is 90% all NEW code
( the next gimp will be 100% all new code , ported to GEGL and not GTK )

this rewrite means things ARE DIFFERENT than they were 8 years ago

in part 2

File->Dialogs->Create New Dock->Layers, Channels & Paths

this is not there any more
the "dialogs" menu was moved a long time ago
it is now under
" Windows > Dockable Dialogs > paths


also a 500 x500 px image was a GOOD idea in 2007 when you likely had LESS than 1 gig ram and most likely had only 512 Meg of ram
today
8 to 16 gig ram is normal

just try to buy a computer today with LESS than 4 gig of ram

now for a bigger image that "solid noise - set at 16 " might not be to usable -- might be too small for the coastline
for say a 1024 x1024 ( a one mega pixel image ) using 7 might be better
ps. your Telephone has likely a 4 Megapixel cam 2048 x 2048 image for a 1:1 image

in part 4

Always save your work as an .xcf file

THIS IS NEW in gimp 2.8 !!!!!
if you click file > save
this IS AUTOMATIC

Gimp DEFAULTS to saving as a gimp internal format "xcf"
to save it as a different format you have to use "export"
File > export as

and unless you save ( as a xcf) the * asterisk in the name in the image window will still be there showing that the image was not saved
and the name of the image will change to "untitled"