[Gimp-user] merge or flatten

[David Gowers]

Hi norman,

On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 9:26 PM, norman <norman at littletank.org> wrote:
> Excuse my ignorance but how should I decide which to use, merge or
>  flatten? I have read the book definitions but these do not help me in
>  deciding which to use.

If you want to preserve transparency (eg. create a result which is
partially/entirely transparent in areas),
use Merge Visible.
Flatten is just like pasting the result of 'merge visible' onto the
background color, then removing the alpha channel.
Merge Visible is just like what would happen if you remove all
non-visible layers and then 'Merge down' until only one layer is left.

Hope that helps :)

David