GIMP (2.10) - Sections of Scaled Image Invisible

Question

I'm working on a project in GIMP and am currently attempting to scale up a PNG that I've pasted onto the project. When I scaled up the image using the Scale Tool, it worked, but for some reason nothing that is outside the original bounds of the image is displayed.

For example, scaling up something that was 600x800 pixels to 1200x1600 works but the sections of that 1200x1600 image outside the original 600x800 area are completely invisible and do not display. Help would be appreciated on this issue.

Thank you.

Answer 1

There are a couple of possibilities which may be causing the problem you describe.

When you paste something in GIMP using Edit > Paste (Ctrl+V), it will become a floating selection. You can see this in the Layers panel. Hit the New Layer button in the Layers panel to promote the floating selection to a new layer, now try scaling it. You can avoid floating selections by using Edit > Paste as > New Layer.

If you scale a layer larger than the canvas it will be cut-off by the extent of the canvas. You can do Image > Fit Canvas to layers. You can also manually adjust the canvas size using Image > Canvas Size.

It's also possible to open a PNG directly in GIMP (without pasting) using File > Open, and then just use Image > Scale Image.

Note: If you scale a raster image larger or smaller by resampling it, the image quality will be degraded. If you still want to do this, then make sure you work on a copy of the image so you that don't overwrite the original.