Too many layers might get a little too unwieldy. So what we are going to do now is merge the layers into one. Doing this will give us only one layer that is easier to deal with. Since these three layers will serve as our background, we will use them as one from here on. We will start with the very top layer and merge it down:

We will rename this new layer merged layers. This is now one unified layer that we will be able to control as a whole.

Now we are going to take the art piece image we created in Chapter 4, Image Resizing and Editing, in which we removed the background. However, we don't want to have the grunge layer affect this layer, so we are going to put this on the top layer.

We do this by navigating to Layers | Import From File...:

In the pop-up window, navigate to the location where we saved the file and import the image by clicking on Open:

Only, something weird happens here. If you notice, the background has suddenly become a thumbnail. Why is that?

When we first worked on this photo and removed the background, we were working with a very large file and we had saved it without resizing it.

If you are importing another layer, by default, Paint.NET will change the canvas size to the largest size layer.

What we will have to do in this case is select the layer we want to resize in the Layers window. Then, using the Select tool, grab the bottom-right corner of the layer and shrink it down so it fits into the background layer. Once the Sculpture layer is resized, resize the canvas back to the original size we were working with. In this case, 800 x 600 pixels:

Now, on closer inspection, we see that there are still some pixels that are visible even after we removed the background. We can see them much better, now that there is our background showing through. We are now going to use the Eraser tool and remove the extra pixels. This is easy to do because the Artwork layer is on its own and erasing the extra pixels will not affect the layers below it. The following is our resulting image: