After googling, looking thru these forums, and experimenting for hours, I can't seem to accomplish what should be a fairly simple project. Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about graphics editing. That's probably why I'm having so much trouble.

Problem: I have four topographical maps. They border each other in a 2x2 grid. I want to merge them all into one file, in context, then edit out the borders, and be left with one seamless map roughly 4 times the size of the individual ones.

If someone would please explain a rough sequence of steps I should be taking, I think I could figure out the details.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but if it is, what you are actually looking for is called "layers". Layers will let you have one image one each "layer" and placing them in different orders, trasparency, etc. You should always use layer when editing an image, like adding text of merging separated images together.

Try this as a quick reference. Open a new image file of 256x256 pixels. A new window with a white image and the title "Untitled" will be opened. Press CTRL + L to bring the layers menu. There, you should see an icon of a little empty page near a trash can. Pressing the white page icon will open a new layer.

I always edit my images on layers, ratter then images itself. In your case, you may want to create multiple layers and paste your images on each of them.

If you are still having problems finding the new layer bottom, let me know and I can upload a screenshot for you somewhere

EDIT: you might want to check a few tutorials here:

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Here is a nice tutorial about layers and how their actually work:

http://tigert.gimp.org/gimp/tutorials/the_bazaar_1999/

Good luck!

I'm missing something obvious. I have no problem creating a Gimp document with multiple layers, and I can look at any specific layer, (each layer is a separate one of the four maps I want to position) ... But the layers stay 'vertically stacked'. I can't move the separate layers to a 'tiled' side by side position.

Start with a blank image 2x the size of your largest map, then paste each into the blank?

So if your maps were 100x100 create a blank 200x200 and all four would fit into it, 2x2. That's how I picture it given your description of the task.

Ah. I can see that that is the solution. Of course these images are about 5000x6000 pixels each, but the theory seems to be working. Thanks a lot.