Transparencies in bitmaps

[AjIsCoool]

Gary
as you see that Real-Draw Pro has the best PNG expoter that i ever used, here i compared it with Corel PhotoPaint & PhotoShop ( i used your way to get the rid off the white color in PP & PS [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] )
See how the transparecy and how smooth the drop shadow comes from R-DP

[jsphar]

I use Photoshop to output masked graphics for use as titles in video clips.

The technique is similar to the .png technique described above. Make a mask of the title, save the mask as an alpha channel, and export the graphic--with alpha channel included--as a 32-bit .tga.

In Premiere, the graphic is placed on a superimposed video track and the alpha channel mask drops out the graphic's background, leaving a title superimposed on a video clip.

I have submitted a wish request to Xara for providing this alpha channel transparency in a future version.

The Xara anti-aliasing engine is superior to PS (IMO), it's an extra step to draw the graphic in Xara and then open in PS, and of course PS is much more expensive than XaraX.

Lots of video producers would love to have this feature in Xara.

--jim

[Luciano]

If your image isn't a PNG with alpha-channel you can recreate transparency in this way:

a- import the bitmap without resizing;
b- while it is selected, open the bitmap gallery and choose the same bitmap as transparency;
c- adjust the transparency profile to obtain a smooth but steep curve;
d- if you like you can even export the image as a PNG with transparency

I hope the attached file will be helpful.

regards
Luciano

[Mark Goodall]

Gary said
-------------------------------------------
I tried this before I posted my first answer. Unless I am missing something, I was unable to export a 32-bit PNG (Alpha channel) from Photoshop 5.5. And Photoshop's PSD export did not preserve the background transparency
-----------------------------------------

This procedure works with Photoshop 6, and we understand there has been a new release of the PNG library, which would seem to have been inspired to fix some Photoshop export problems in version 5.5, and possibly 5.0.
So I believe there is a high chance that the problem is a photoshop bug.

Mark Goodall
Xara Ltd

[Ross Macintosh]

Excellent tip Luciano! I know I will find it very useful.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[ric]

Let's turn this transparency thing inside-out. Can Xara export images that retain their transparency?

Since I was having no luck getting Photoshop-created bitmap-with-transparency images from PS to Xara, I thought maybe I could just do it the other way around. I'd create text and shapes in Xara X and then do the other work inside of PhotoShop (version 5.5).

I exported (from Xara) .ai files, .png files--I even exported .gif files. I made sure I was using maximum bit depths, alpha channel, and also preserving transparency in the export options.

When I opened these files with Photoshop, there was a conspicuous lack of transparency.

Xara is such a xippy vector app, and Photoshop is such a phantastic raster app; can't they just get along and play nice with each other?

Disclaimer: I'm no graphics wizard, so the source of this "problem" might be between chair and keyboard.

[This message was edited by Ric Sneed on February 07, 2002 at 10:59.]

[ivan louette]

PNG with alpha export very well from Photoshop 5 to Xara X and 32 bits Tiffs too.

But exporting a transparent PNG from Xara X to Photoshop 5 give a black background!

ivan

Be transparent, re-invent the Rose.

[\"W\"]

Welcome to the Forum Ric Sneed,

I'd like to pass this along to everyone who works with Xara and Photoshop. It isn't a huge deal and might have been mentioned in another thread before. Sorry for this.

The short:

If I can only use Xara exclusively for any given project, i do. But, there are times when I must use Photoshop with Xara or vice versa. In this instance, I'll speak about the Xara X to P-Shop scenario to partially answer Ric's question. Keep in mind, i have no claim to be a master of either. I'm just passing along reults of personal experience. To that end, if others have anything to add here, please chime in.

The long: Xara to P-Shop using EPS export.

PLACE:
You will find success and decent results with this method. The main benefit is that you can scale the object after initial "placement". Keep in mind, Xara's native effects like bevel, certain fountain fills,.. or other anomilies - will get rasterized. Therefore, scaling after placement (while you still see the bounding box before you hit enter) is rather limiting to avoid pixelating the rastered portions of the eps. The vector retains crispness. Watching your DPI upon export should take care of this.

About Text:

Be careful when exporting text that has roundness top and bottom. Sometimes, it can get "cut-off" on export. In this case, I simply expand the boundries of the object by placing small ellipses beyond the overall size of the object, then use the eraser tool in PS to get rid of them later.

PNG export:

Work exported by Xara as Png's must include the alpha channel as previously mentioned. Upon opening in P-Shop, the channels pallete will reveal this at the bottom. CTRL-clicking this will mask the object. CTRL-J will create the layer for you to drag into the working document.
They don't "place" directly into your P-Shop doc, like an EPS rather, it must be dragged from the opened doc you exported from Xara (please correct me if i'm wrong). I'll leave it at that for now.

Regards, Wayne

[This message was edited by "W" on February 07, 2002 at 13:58.]