Got to be a better way to mask or crop

[johnnyo714]

Beginner here! I've made a logo, now I'm trying to remove the white background. The logo has shadow around parts of it. If I try to mask it with the freehand tool it looks cheesey, plus I export it and it still has the white background. I've tried to follow the instructions in the "Help" section under "masking" and am stuck at 3. Edit the new shape as you would a normal shape.... right!

Isn't there a better way to mask or crop? I saw the stained glass tip, but don't know the steps to do that. Cropping or masking properly would get me over the hump with my project, any help would be appreciated.

[Egg Bramhill]

Hello Jonny and welcome.
I know it's difficult at present (with no direct image posts) but is there some way you could post your original logo. We could then advise on the best way forward.
Egg

[gwpriester]

Hello Johnnyo

If you don't have the ability to post the logo on a website and link to the image, you can send it to one of us as an e-mail attachment and we can post it.

Gary

[stlewis]

This sounds like a gif fringe... I'm guessing but you have made a logo which you are placing on a web page.

Johnnyo, before you export, place a rectangle behind your logo - use the same colour as the web page background. Then select just your logo and export that.

[amoore]

To take Simon's hint a bit further... You can still export as a transparent bitmap. The rectangle will enable Xara to antialias your logo so it matches the intended background.

It's not just the color of the rectangle. If the website (or whatever) has a textured background, the rectangle should have the same texture. Same thing if the background is an image, Just make sure you position the logo over the same spot in the image.

[jaxtraw]

IMHO it's often more trouble than it's worth making transparent gifs. With all the trouble with matching against the background colour, you lose most of the benefits of transparency anyway- may as well just make a rectangular image with the background included, and design the website to incorporate that.

Now if all browsers had proper .png transparency support... ~sigh~

[johnnyo714]

Wanted to thank everyone for their support, it was os refreshing to see this kind of backing. I believe "Jaxtraw" is right. It's probably more trouble than it's worth, so I decided to make my own logo with Xara X... and I have to say, I like it more than the first one... thanks againg for your quick support