On the latest version of GIMP on my PC, whenever I try to copy a transparent image from the internet, GIMP will automatically fill in the transparent areas with the background color I have selected.
This is a non-issue on my Mac, but I need to do this work on my PC, so how can I make it recognize the alpha of the image and not fill it with the background color?
The image canvas that I'm working with does have an alpha channel, but that does not seem to make a difference.
This "works for me" - actually the only I see of it not working is if one does edit->paste on GIMP - it them creates a "floating selection" - which is a temporary layer which exists mostly to allow positioning of the pasted contents - and them "anchor" the floating layer on a opaque, background layer. The transparency was there, as expected, but "anchoring" is the act of fixing the pasted pixels on the background. Note that just clicking on the image, outside the selection will anchor the pasted data in this way.
The options you have are either, after edit->paste click on the New Layer button (frst button on the layers dialog - or through the Layer->New Layer (Shift + Ctrl + N) menu action: this will promote the pasted contents to a full layer which retains its transparency. Or, you might as well just paste with Edit->Paste As->New Layer to start with: no floating selection is created.
The data saved to the clipboard when copying the photo may not support the aplha channel/transparent data. What works for me is opening the transparent picture in GIMP, then clicking and dragging the layer from the transparent image into the project I'm working on. Hope that helps!
In my case in Gimp one image was pasted to another as a black-white. A transparency and colors have been lost. So I turned off a visibility of other layers, selected a needed layer and copied whole image to a new one. Then cropped.
WORKAROUND I couldnt find a way to make it paste with the transparent background. Luckily, the background I needed to paste it on is white, so I just opened an excel spreadsheet and merged a bunch of cells to make a white background, pasted my image, then used the snipping tool to select my image then pasted into GIMP
Classic mistake is to assume the picture you want to "Paste as New Layer" is actually transparent. (The white-gray background is no guarantee.) Most of the people here who ask this question do not realize that they are trying to paste non transparent picture. If the background in your pic is truly (alpha) transparent it will immidiatelly show on the new pic without the "white-grey" background. If it pastes with the white-grey background then it's not and you are doing something wrong. It's the actual source image that is the problem.
Try this. Using your mouse right click a source (google searched transparent) image on your browser and paste that directly to GNU GIMP as a new layer... and voila. You most likely succeed with first try. There is no need to try to save the source to your hard drive (correctly or incorrectly).
