Partially transparent shapes or bitmap

[antimix]

Hello,

I was drawing a crystal vinyl, and I had the scanned circular bitmap of the vinyl.
I wanted to make it semi transparent, but excluding the central rounded part that is the label, that should remain opaque, so that composing images with this disc, when the semi transparent vinyl is on a surface, it can partially shows behind.

- I realized that the transparency tool doesn't work, since it applies to all the circular bitmap.
- Masking the bitmap surface with the mask tool does not work, since the transparency ignore the mask.
- I tried to create a circular shape partially transparent, but I can't set the boundaries of the transparency.

My solution was :

• I took the circular vinyl bitmap and made a bitmap copy
• I took one copy and made it semi-transparent.
• I took the second copy and with a circular shape of the same size of the opaque label, I have done a "combine shapes / intersect" to have only the rounded shape of the label (that is opaque)
• I put the opaque rounded label bitmap over the semi-transparent vinyl bitmap matching the label position.
• Arrange group, and create bitmap copy.

Then I had the nice semi transparent vinyl bitmap with opqaue label, that I could put on the other image for composition.

- Is there any easier solution in XARA Design Pro X10?

Best Regards

[gwpriester]

That's how I would do it too.

[Acorn]

With just the bitmap, you can apply a circular transparency at, say, 50%.
Then open its Profile and set the bottom control to -1.
You adjust the size of the solid inner by making the length of the Tool line smaller or bigger.

You can adjust the position of the inner disk.
You can change it to an ellipse.
Linear and Conical give an edge.
Diamond gives a rectangle.

Acorn

[antimix]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried the last method and seems faster.

Best Regards