How can I use masks ?

I've been experimenting Xara X for a while and didn't found a way to use the black and white .jpg masks I use with with PSP and UPI. Can someone help me and tell me what i have to do ? Many thanks. Excuse my bad english..... :) Sophie from France

Bonjour Sophie (well, bonne soir) - and welcome.

With a vector tool like Xtreme, rather than a bitmap/raster tool like PSP, we create a freehand shape and then slice the bitmap.

To get you started on this, have a look at the Help movie (go to Help and Movies). You need 'photo crop'. Ignore the first bit - until she uses the circle.

Working with photos
...
Photo crop
...

As she says, you can use any shape to slice the photo or any other bitmap object.

OR you can use Egg's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8XgHkZo1J8

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=21659

Not exactly like a mask, but you can use a grayscale image to invoke transparency.

You can change the grayscale image.

Rich

My favorite new method for masking now is using a bump map along with the method described in Egg's Video.

Why bump mask you ask? Because you can make the mask any color you want in the bump map dialog (under plugins.) I usually use grey and add sharpness to the feature, thus making it bumpy and easier to carve out (slice) the portions I want using Egg's method.

Also, with a bump mask, if you clone the bump map, you know have a magnificient overlay which you can assign different colors and use the bumpiness to make a new grain fill. Look at the stone apple in the original photo and notice it's new color and it's new texture and color in the cropped/masked photos.

The final reason I like this method is that now I have each mask as a separate object. I can put it behind/in front or use it as an overlay/ or all the other things you can do in Xara Xtreme.

Just my method that I use and I enjoy it. :)

I talk about this method in another post I did.

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...614#post162614

Thanks a lot, I've tried both and discovered new effects, this software is fantastic !

Welcome Sophie

Xara is fantastic. We agree :)

Gary