#layer folders

Assuming you have something like your line art on a separate layer to your colouring, create a layer folder, and drag all the layers you want to move into (onto) the folder.

(If the parts you want to move are only parts of paint layers, and you don’t want to move the entire layer, select the parts first on each layer one-by-one, cut and paste - paste creates a new layer automatically each time you paste.)

You can then choose the layer folder, and the Move tool, and drag the entire folder and all its layers.

To rotate a single layer, or contents within a layer folder, first select the areas you want to rotate. 

(If you have a layer folder selected, all the layers inside it will be affected, otherwise the selection will affect only the selected layer.)

Then use Select menu, Transform (Ctrl+T on Windows, Cmmd+T on MacOS).

Drag outside the Transform box to rotate, drag inside the box to move, and drag the corners to resize. 

You can also hold Ctrl (Cmmd on a Mac?) to distort by dragging individual box corners (for normal distortion, you probably want to untick Perspective at the bottom of the window).

To confirm and “freeze” the transform, click the OK button at the bottom of the window (or again use Ctrl/Cmmd+T).

Common in photographic image manipulation, blending modes allow you to combine layers in interesting ways for adding shading, highlights, and colouring effects. The upper layer is set to a blending mode which changes how it affects the layer below.

See some more descriptions and examples of blending modes (some blending modes shown may not be available in FireAlpaca, which focuses more on digital painting effects rather than image manipulation):

https://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/BlendModes.html

https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/03/an-explanation-of-photoshop-blending-modes/

Layer folders allow you to transform multiple layers at once (move, rotate, resize, distort) e.g. one folder for a cow, for a random example, but still having line art on one layer, base colour on another layer, coat colour variations and texture on another layer, shading on another layer - but you can still move/resize the whole cow as one object.

Folders can also be used to limit blending effects to specific layers, or hide/show multiple layers with a single click. Folders make it easy to duplicate several layers at once.

Folders can also be useful for onion skin (animation) mode - multiple layers in a single folder are output as a single frame.

No, your method would be the best. What you could do is duplicate the layers in that folder though and merge them. Toggle the visibility of the folder to off and then clip a layer to the merged layer to do the shading. That way, you have the original layers in the folder if you need to go back and edit them, and you have the shading layer to reclip after you’re done.

I do suspect they will allow editing folders in the future, but for now, they don’t :(

EDIT: see Obtusity’s answer below.

-Ani

Ooh, I only just discovered (using 1.7.6) that if you set your folder layer to Normal blending mode rather than the default Pass Through, you can clip/shade to it! Up until now I have always used Ani’s method for shading folders.

If you have closed the file so you cannot undo and you have not saved an unmerged copy of the file, it might be too late.

When you merge two layers, the merged layer takes on the blending mode and opacity of the lowermost layer.

My recommendation: have a base layer set to normal blending and full opacity, merge from the “lowermost layers, moving up”.

So, if you have a structure like this, for a simple example:

highlight (normal mode)

pupil (normal mode)

bright texture (add mode, clipped to iris)

dark texture (multiply mode, clipped to iris)

iris (normal mode)

shading (multiply mode, clipped to sclera)

sclera (normal mode)

(indented layers are clipped to the unindented layer below, not sub-layers of the layer above)

Then first I would merge the dark texture layer down (to the iris layer), then the bright texture, then the shading layer, then merge the iris layer down, then the pupil layer down, then the highlight layer down.

Another (possibly better) alternative, which means you can keep all the layers and their blending modes and opacity, is to add a layer folder, then add all the layers into the folder, then you can move the entire layer folder as one unit without merging the layers.

Yes, a folder (and its contents) should drag without problems.

Try clicking on the folder icon to close the layer. Drag by the folder name area or the space to the right of the layer folder name, not the icon.

Note: the folder does not visually drag, but a blue glow (in recent versions, it used to be a red line) should appear where it is safe to release, thus dropping the folder.

You can use layer folders each containing multiple layers, each folder exports as a single frame image, combining all the layers within the folder.

You will need to duplicate your background image and add it as the lowermost layer in each folder.

Yes! 

Although it is not obvious, you can click directly on the folder icon itself (the little picture of a folder) in the layers list to close or expand the folder, hiding or showing the layers inside.

If you look very carefully, the folder icon does very slightly change colour (I think it’s a blue overlay, but I’m not sure) as you move your cursor over it.

-Obtusity

Probably the best way is to use layer folders - folders are treated as a single layer for Onion Skin purposes.