Separating object from background

[Soquili]

Glad to help out Rupert.

The attached image shows no transparency on the left.

On the right the same image with 0% Stained Glass transparency. It is over a quick dark cyan and white chequered pattern.

[David O'Neil]

Note that the knob and the two white blocks inside the camera became transparent in all of the methods Sledger illustrated. The plugins affect the entire picture, so you probably want to make a quick clipview copy of the insides of the picture to overcome that, if it is an issue.

[steve.ledger]

Precisely David, I hoped the use of the blue bar illustrated this.
You can also see the effect of removing all white pixels form Johns (neodeist) monitor samples.
As you have shown, there are work arounds where this is not desireable, though often I have found this to be acceptable when creating brochures.

[handrawn]

good way of restoring the internal detail David

on occasion I have made bitmap trace, removed background, filled white and then placed behind
this is ok for simple shapes - but for the complicated ones, the trace nearly always needs 'fixing' somewhat

[raynerj1]

I would just slice and dice it myself. Most manmade shapes are not that difficult to trace and can be done in under 5 minutes.

Plants... on the other hand can be really hard to slice and dice.

[Rhanna]

David, in your graphic, as I looked at it, you had two clipview items to get a more solid graphic to overcome the deficiency by just applying the stainglass transparency. I have had a fiddle around but can't get the effect you have. Could you possibley explain how you achieved it?
Rupert

[David O'Neil]

I think (but am not certain) that I first made a clone of the graphic, then, with the top copy, I applied the Medhi Eraser Classic to it, and I also applied a little bitmap feather to that graphic. Then I clipviewed it with a square, simply to hide the peripheral stuff. (I seem to recall clipviewing it before bitmap feathering--maybe I 'Ctrl' reached inside the clipview.)

Then I sent that to the back, and drew a rough shape to clipview the non-hidden stuff with, and applied it to the top, non-clipviewed and non-feathered bitmap. (I gave that shape a 'no-fill, no-outline' attribute before I used it in the clipview.) After that I created the new background.

Of course I made some mistakes along the way, so even if my memory of the final steps is correct, the path wasn't quite the one above.

I hope this helps.

[steve.ledger]

You lost me at the first clipview David. It's still a square (bitmap) even with the white removed via MEDHI Classic - it isn't a camera *shape*.
Clipviewing a square with a square gives me a square ?
Maybe I've just lost the plot...

Attached is a better version of the camera image.

I'd really appreciate it if you could find time to rediscover your process and upload a .xar perhaps

[David O'Neil]

The first clipview was done because I was using your original graphic, and wanted to hide everything outside of the white square (the other three cameras).

[handrawn]

thanks David - I appreciate that too