336 CHAPTER 9: Android Graphic Design: Making Your UI Designs Visual
Since you have already copied this selected circular area from your Milky Way galaxy source imagery
into the clipboard of your workstation, let’s use this cool Paste As New Layer function next, to create
the new layer which has our transparency already in it. The transparency in the new layer will be
everywhere that there is no image data present in your clipboard, which is really the end result that
we’re looking to achieve.
The menu sequence is shown in Figure 9-21, and as you can see, the current
ImageButton1source.png is still visible, as well as selected (which is signified using a light gray
color). Thus, the clipboard image layer will be pasted above this, and below the ImageButtonRing.
png layer, which is exactly where you want the new layer to be within your overall image compositing
layer stack. This is because you want your ring UI element on top of the Milky Way galaxy image
layer that has the transparency in it, so that when you export the project, it looks like a button.
Remember to achieve this visual result that you will need to have the original galaxy image layer
visibility turned off, as shown in Figure 9-22, which the GIMP File ➤ Export operation will “respect”
during the image export process, and your end-result will be an ImageButton UI element with
transparency all the way around it.
Figure 9-21. Use the Edit ➤ Paste as ➤ New Layer menu sequence to create a new layer with an alpha channel