In this thread there have been some good basic advice about transparencies. Rather than burden that thread with yet more pixels, I thought I'd post this transparency tip in its own thread.
My tip is you can still use the tansparency tool with the "transparency shape" set to "none". You don't have to set it to flat, linear, eliptical, etc. to use it! For the example below I overlayed a black & white bitmap on the wood-filled shape. With the imported bitmap selected I set its transparency type to "stained glass" without adjusting any other settings. (Transparency shape was left set to "none"). With the stained glass type set, the white in the bitmap became transparent.
While I used a black & white bitmap, the same technique can be used with almost any bitmap. You will get a slightly different effect using a greyscale image vs. a full colour. Xara's bitmap effects can be used to convieniently reduce the colour depth of your bitmaps.
I often use this technique with a scanned in pencil sketches. I put them on their own layer, set the transparency type to "stained glass" and then make the layer uneditable. I then draw on other layers that are behind the one with the sketch. By drawing on layers behind the black pencil lines remain black. If I'm 'colourizing' the image I can be quite sloppy (ie quick) with the colour-filled shapes because their boundries are masked by the pencil lines. I find this technique works very well.
Regards, Ross
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