"The Spider's Nest" - inked-in WIP

[Abu Lafia]

Hey Chris, in this case you have to just "Create an new Layer" (the blank sheet symbol on the far left right beneath your layer window ) this way the floating selection is made into a new layer. I thought it would work by cutting it and then "Edit"--> "Paste as" --> "Into New Layer" but i haven't wrote it down clearly. Sorry, it's one of the things i do fairly automatic and haven't thought of mentioning in the steps... Hope it works now

Ah, ok i got the problem now: When you "Paste as new layer" The original selection stays where it was. You need to deselect by "Select" --> "None" first, after that you can invert the layers' color ... as said it's sometimes a tricky and painful way ...

Edit2: It seems one effect of these different paste options is, that with the "Floating Selection" to new layer option (the one i use mostly) the original selection is "deselected" automatically and you can work on the whole layer as you wish. With the "Paste as new layer" option, as mentioned, the original selection stays and the new (automatically cropped) layer is inserted into the image on the top left corner. If you do not deselect the selection, the "Invert" function is only applied to the selected area, where is nothing left to apply it. Yeah, there are some strange things to keep in mind when working with gimp...
On a general note: If you try to draw or do anything and it doesn't seem to work properly, it's always good to check whether you selected the right layer, or if there is a selection around somewhere that you need to deselect/adjust first.

[Chris Lewis]

Yes that makes sense AL. Unfortunately all I could achieve was this when I inverted my colors.
Presentation1.png

I think it has something to do with me importing the picture I took of my map - it just won't let me invert the colors no matter what I do. It seems that when I draw a landmass and waves using the pen tool (on a transparent layer), only then am I able to achieve the results you described above