Improvement suggestion...........

[RAMWolff44]

Hi,

I am working away on my Universal Being project and created a VERY nice star set. Grouped and created a bitmap copy and wanted to sharpen them up so they will shine through some fractals that I have designed to go over the top. So they NEED to be very sharp for the maximum intensity. They will become the 'far away stars'.

So I double click on XPE, up it comes and all there is a white background and since the stars are white then there is nothing to see. The other thing that you should know is that they are on a plain BLACK background so they can be seen on the screen.

So my suggestion is.... Charles, do you think you can code XPE to recognize colors and if it's a very light color with Alpha then it would automatically create a darker background so one can see what one it doing?? In the case of the stars it would have been nice to have XPE copy the background color I am using (which is Black) so I can see what I'm doing. A white on white will not do!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

If XPE is going to fully support 32bit alpha layers then I think that needs to be thought out a bit more. I'm sure that my situation, while for now is a first for XPE and how it's handling it, but what of other users that have alpha channel used and have snow drifts, rain, stars, clouds, water..... you get the picture. You can't see them if XPE is going to default to a white background each and every time.

Thanks!

[raynerj]

Hi Richard,

Would this be good under an options button on xpe (pick a color/type a hex code)?

[RAMWolff44]

Hmmm, that's a good idea but for those that DON'T know the hexidecimal then maybe a color picker tool? That might be better all the way around for newbies and pros alike. Or, heck, why we are dreaming might as well as for both!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Charles Moir]

OK interesting. Can I ask - is the black colour the colour of the page background in Xara X. It occurs to me that we could transfer the Xara X page background colour across (by which I mean the paper colour - where you Ctrl-drag a colour to set). That won't help if you've just drawn your stars on a black rectangle or something like that.

Detecting the colours of the bitmap is very difficult and unlikely to work in many cases. A colour picker is on the cards however because many Photoshop plug-ins require a background and foreground colour to be passed and so providing a colour picker would solve both problems. It's not implemented yet, but is on the wish list - I think you've just pushed it up the wish list a bit.

[RAMWolff44]

Hi Charles,

Thanks for taking a look.

Yes, the Background colour would work but the latter is better if the PS plugins need this anyway. So there you are. Colour Picker tool!

http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[ivan louette]

Excellent idea Richard !!!

Thanks Charles, I would push it up the wish list too !!!

ivan

[jclements]

I would agree.

Basically, ANYTHING that can be done to improve the ability to create transparent bitmaps ... GIFs, PNGs, TIFs, etc. ... should, in my opinion, be moved up towards the TOP of the list.