Making White Background Transparent

[LorraineH]

I am new to graphics and in particular Xara Xtreme. I have taken a copy of my logo from a Word document and placed in Xara. It appears that the artwork is contained in a white rectangular box. I want my logo to be placed on a coloured background without the white box appearing. Can anyone help me? Your help is most appreciated!

[jamesmc]

The Xtreme veterans will probably help you more with this than I can.

Look at my Chihuahua Avatar next to my name. I did this method below.

Here's an old tried and true method for bitmap based logos and the one I used on the chihuahua.

1. Screen shot the page (press printscreen button) where the graphic logo is going to be placed.
2. Imported the screen shot (paste) into your paint software.
3. Make sure your logo is loaded up and active, click on it.
4. Sample the fill of the color on the page or particular area (notice the blue around the chihuahua is different than the rest of the pages colors) where your graphic will be placed.
5. Use that fill to surround the logo.
You might get rough looking edges this way, but can use a blur tool to smooth things out or edit fill/paint pixel by pixel.
=============
The Xara way or at least one way I can think of is:

If your logo is rectangular in shape make a rectangle, otherwise you can use one of the line tools to trace outline the outside of your logo.

Once you get near the end of the trance the symbol will turn into a "+" meaning that you can connect the outline. You will now have a outline filled shape of your logo.

Don't move either shape, leave them in place. With your cursor arrow (pointer) draw an bounding box (line will form a box around both graphics as you draw the rectangle.)

Click on the menu Item ARRANGE>Combine Shapes>Slice(cut) Shapes.

Now drag the free logo out and you will have just the logo with nothing around it.

I would still recommend using a background fill for the page you put it on though as that is the only sure fire way to guarantee you match exactly.

Others will recommend methods I'm sure. Been a long day and I have fuzzy eyes and brain.

[Lionel]

Hi;
If you want to use another software you can use Photopaint. I am using X3 and I remove the background in the Cutout Lab, then I create a Mask from the object and save the image as a Tiff. A window will open saying that "objects will be merged with the background in the exported file", click OK and that's it. Import your image in your XARA file.

If your background is white for example you can use the Magic Wand Mask tool to select the background and then delete it and create a Mask from the object and save the image as a Tiff.

Lionel

[Egg Bramhill]

A quick and possible way to do it is:
Import it into XaraX.
Select it and Apply a Stained Glass Transparency.
Create a bitmap copy with Alpha (Xara might give you a warning but Continue)
You've now got a bitmap without the white surround.
This works better on some bitmaps than others depending on their content.

[gwpriester]

There is a plug-in created by Sean Sedwards 24-bit mask which you can download free from the Xara Xone Shareware page (follow the link).

Install this filter in this directory: c:/Program Files/Xara/Xtreme/Xara Picture Editor/PS Plug-ins.

Then select your logo, select the Live Effects Tool, select 24-bit Mask from the drop down list of filters and create the mask.

Create a bitmap copy of the mask.

Select your logo and then select the mask in the Bitmap Gallery and press Transp.

There are more detailed instructions on the linked page.

Gary

[standay]

Install this filter in this directory: c:/Program Files/Xara/Xtreme/Xara Picture Editor/PS Plug-ins.

Then select your logo, select the Live Effects Tool, select 24-bit Mask from the drop down list of filters and create the mask.

Gary

Gary, is there something else you have to do to get this filter to show up? I can get it to show in PaintShop Pro but it doesn't work there, it does show up and work in Photoshop 7 but no matter what I try it never shows up in either XaraX or Xtreme. How did you get it to work?

Stan

[gwpriester]

Ah, you know what? I just looked and there are 2 directories. See attached screen shot. Perhaps you put the filter in the wrong folder.

If not, let me know and we'll see what else we can suggest.

Gary

[molucca]

I thought one of the plugins required a system DLL. Don't remember. Rich

[gwpriester]

There is a file MSVCRT10.EXE which is availble on the Sean's Filters Page but this does not appear to be the prolem, Rich, if the filters are showing up in other programs.

Gary

[standay]

I thought one of the plugins required a system DLL. Don't remember. Rich

This one requires it...after I put that MSVCRT10.DLL into the same folder as the plugin it finally came up! Gary, it turns out it worked in my Photoshop because my Photoshop has that DLL in its folder.

Thanks guys.

Stan