cutting out a logo from white background

[stuart1980]

I am currently working with some logos, which I have borrowed from elsewhere. The problem is the logos are placed on a white background, so the only background I can use to place them on is white. If I use any other colour as a background the logo will show with a white rectangle around it. I take it there must be a way to cut it out from the white background to the logo?

[iamtheblues]

There are several ways to do this in Xtreme. You can either use the Mehdi Live Effect Eraser Classic to remove the white, or you can hand trace around the logo and intersect the logo and the background. Or you could use Xtreme's Bitmap Tracer.
Saludos,
Bob.

[stuart1980]

Could you outline how to do this with the bitmap tracer? I'm new, sorry, can't figure it out. Thanks.

[steve.ledger]

Hi Stuart,

Have a look at this post (includes a tutorial):

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=18562

[stuart1980]

I have used the settings for 'Adobe Man' as displayed in the tutorial, as I thought this was the closest match to what I want to do. However, the image keeps turning out blurred. I have attached the Xar file, if anyone can help. Can't seem to figure this out. Thanks.

[stuart1980]

Its ok I think I have it now, I need to have smoothing set to zero.

[steve.ledger]

Stuart this is a fairly straight forward project for the 'shape editor' tool.

I would spend some time to learn to use it, the rewards are great because you will have the ability to quickly produce vector copies of bitmap logos quite quickly in the future.

See the XaraXone tutorial for the Shape Editor here:
http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook30/page_6.htm

This I drew (hand traced) in a matter of seconds in Xtreme.

[stuart1980]

Thanks, I'll look at that and have a go.

So can I not break an image up into pieces using bitmap tracer. After I have done the trace I can't seem to colour the background different?

[dogbertbh]

Being in the car business I have used borrowed images extensively.

One thing I have noticed is that if an image is a GIF on a website and I copy it, it pastes into Xara as a bitmap, creating the white rectangle.

Sometimes using the Import from Web feature allows me to download the GIF version.

Otherwise I just use the shape tool and trace the image. Making the original image slightly transparent and locking the object has helped me to do this more effectively.

[steve.ledger]

Honestly, don't fluff around with the bitmap tracer for this, believe me, it's not worth the effort for clean logos like that, you'll spend more time trying to make it look good than you would redrawing it by hand.

Xtreme's Shape Editor was the tool that sold it to me (my sanity has still yet to recover from CorelDRAW and Illustrator)