GIMP blendmask problem

Hi everyone,

 

I'm following the photoreal scenery tutorial stickied in this forum an I've got an issue with the blend mask section. I have created the following blendmask using a soft edged brush in GIMP:

 

 

...and when I export it I check the single compatibility box and I export it using the 24 bit option. Here is how it looks:

 

 

As you can see the softness of the edges has not been exported for some reason. It's as if the whole thing was done using a 100% hard brush, even though the softness is there in GIMP. Any ideas? I've tried messing with a few settings but no luck!

 

Thanks :)

Don't really know GIMP, so take what you can. I set things up using a Gaussian blur, using the Magic Wand tool. Hit the white area with the Magic Wand, specify a blur of a few* pixels and apply. Zoom in to see if it gives the desired gradient.

 

*few=developer's desired effect, be it 5 pixels, 50 pixels, whatever.

 

It's been a while since I made any photo, so I'm hoping the comments are accurate. And it's 1st cup of coffee time for me...

I do not use Gimp either so this is a guess.

 

Do you have a white layer under the black layer?

 

What does the exported bitmap look like in Gimp?

 

What does it look like in Windows Photo Viewer if you zoom in?

 

The only other thought I have is that your image is huge.

 

You might need to break it into smaller pieces.

 

peace,

the Bean

Not familiar with GIMP either but does it matter that the image is RGB instead of greyscale?

Thanks for the suggestions. I fixed the problem by first saving it as a JPEG and then re-converting it to a 24 bit BMP. tvieno: The tutorial does it in greyscale, so I guess it's right! StringBean: It's a pretty big picture yes, not sure if that's the problem though :)