I've got a quick photoshop question. How do you make backgrounds transparent? I was just looking at Jojo's little Falcon fig and noticed that the area around the body is clear. To get the same effect in the past I have just matched the background color in my image to the same color as the forum background. E.g. if you look at this guy:
You don't see the background, but if I change the surrounding area:
You'll see that it's really just a blue background.
But with Jojo's, this:
Jojo wrote:
looks the same as this:
So, how do I do that? Is this possible in Photoshop? Or do I need a different graphics program? Does it have to do with jpg vs gif? My solution is okay, but would need to be changed in different settings. Plus if my blue doesn't match exactly, you can see the outline of the box.
I'm no computer-geek, but I think it's because Jojo is a .psd, whereas your pic is a .jpg. Of course, if I'm wrong, I'm sure I'll get corrected. Falsehoods are swiftly struck down around here.
My pic is a GIF image. In GIFs you have got the option to define colours to be "transparent". The blue background in your pic is very suitable for being defined "transparent" because it is monochrome. In my own images the background is mostly white/grey with spots from my bad light which makes it a PITA to edit them properly. I only have MS Photo Editor, it comes with the option to define colours "transparent" and save the pic as .gif. Maybe I should get some more elaborated picture editing program, too...
Bye
Jojo
P.S.
And I think you can set a permanent cookie on "Always allow BBCode" in your member profile.
My current avatar is a .gif file, so I just selected the background color with the magic wand and deleted it. One quick upload and look to the left. Viola.
Oh, if anyone has any questions about a particular graphic, with Windows you can place the cursor over the picture, right click, scroll down to properties (at the bottom) and select that, and you'll get a dialogue box that will give you information on the format of the pic.
Redwine the Ribald: Stare long enough into the abyss...
Two-Tonic Tippler: ...and you spit into it.
Okay, I figured out the problem I was having after reading your suggestions. I had several layers in photoshop, but even if the background was transparent, to "save as" I had to flatten the image into one layer, which always filled in a default background color. Instead I could "export as" a GIF file and keep the transparency. This is all Photoshop 4.0.1 for Mac, so the terms may vary in other software.
Still a bit of a pain. I find that if I use the magic wand to knock out the background I'm not happy with the result. So instead I blow up the pic 400x so I can see it as pixels and use the lassoo tool to grab and knockout sections by hand. This works fine if there are lots of straight lines, but is tough with lots of curves (as in figs).
Bruce
Oh, Jojo, thanks. I did have my profile set to "Always disable BBCode", so I kept forgetting to manually unclick the "disable BBCode" box on my posts. I've now gone back and changed the profile.
Bruce N H wrote:Okay, I figured out the problem I was having after reading your suggestions. I had several layers in photoshop, but even if the background was transparent, to "save as" I had to flatten the image into one layer, which always filled in a default background color. Instead I could "export as" a GIF file and keep the transparency. This is all Photoshop 4.0.1 for Mac, so the terms may vary in other software.
Still a bit of a pain. I find that if I use the magic wand to knock out the background I'm not happy with the result. So instead I blow up the pic 400x so I can see it as pixels and use the lassoo tool to grab and knockout sections by hand. This works fine if there are lots of straight lines, but is tough with lots of curves (as in figs).
You can set the percentage of compatiblity on the magic wand so that you can make it more or less sensitive depending on the background/foreground similiarity. You can also use the "feather" function to affect the smoothness of the selected area. Play around with those a bit and you'll find you don't need to use the lasso that much.
Redwine the Ribald: Stare long enough into the abyss...
Two-Tonic Tippler: ...and you spit into it.
So instead I blow up the pic 400x so I can see it as pixels and use the lassoo tool to grab and knockout sections by hand. This works fine if there are lots of straight lines, but is tough with lots of curves (as in figs).
Welcome to my world of set image editing It is a pain but the results are beautiful. I like your figs very much. Even thought the tolerances of the magic wand can be adjusted, I am not happy with the quality. Lasso is much better.
That is amazing. I really wish I could edit my pics like that. I don't have a program that can crop that good. Does anybody know if you can download photoshop?
I use the magic wand tool in Macromedia Fireworks. It's interesting that this came up, as I've been slowly making "title images" for my Brickshelf Gallery. Not .gif's though, just matching background colours. What I've been doing is just using larger images, and shrinking them down. If I do want to crop a pic and have it "full-size" I take the image at a enormous size to start with, crop them, then shrink them down to 800x600, or whatever is appropriate.
That is amazing. I really wish I could edit my pics like that. I don't have a program that can crop that good. Does anybody know if you can download photoshop?
Photoshop is one of the best image editing softwares and is expensive. Even a student version will be over $100. For that reason I am still using version 4.0 instead of the latest 7.0 or whatever it out now.
That is amazing. I really wish I could edit my pics like that. I don't have a program that can crop that good. Does anybody know if you can download photoshop?
Photoshop is one of the best image editing softwares and is expensive. Even a student version will be over $100. For that reason I am still using version 4.0 instead of the latest 7.0 or whatever it out now.
Ben E.
The full version of Photoshop, which is meant for professionals, is very expensive, but the version I recommend to most people is Photoshop Elements, which contains most everything you need for home digital darkroom work. It's list price (meaning you can get it cheaper) is $99.
Redwine the Ribald: Stare long enough into the abyss...
Two-Tonic Tippler: ...and you spit into it.
It is a pain but the results are beautiful. I like your figs very much. Even thought the tolerances of the magic wand can be adjusted, I am not happy with the quality. Lasso is much better.
