Help with transparency

[Mangly]

I would like to be able to import images I've drawn in other programs into Corel Painter, but cannot get rid of the white area round the selection. Is there a way of making this transparent? Without being familiar with the technical terms used in the help file ("channels" and such like), it's hard for me to find a solution there. Any help would be appreciated.

[molucca]

Painter has an autoselect that you might be able to use. It will open PSD files, and those can retain transparency. It does a PSP and a Tif that might have that capability. It doesn't accept PNG/alpha. I haven't done this in a while, but you can load a selection from an alpha channel, and save the selection. Or, make an autoselect and do a similar thing. I was reading that Cybia Alpha Works will act as a plugin in Painter. (freeware)

You might list the applications and file types you are using.

I usually convert PNGs to PSD for use in Painter.

Rich

[Mangly]

Dear Rich,
Thanks for your help. I don't have PhotoShop, but I see how that might work.

My problem with Corel Paint is that I find it frustratingly counter-intuitive; I mean, in every other program I have used, you use the Select tool, put a selection frame round whatever you want to select, then you can do stuff with it. You can move the bit of image around, copy it, etc. You could do this in my old Painter Classic. In Painter IX, I put a selection frame round something and all it selects is a bit of blank space. Or I copy a selected image and it turns out to have become, for some reason, semi-transparent: ???

I read all these inputs from people on the Forum, and I can hardly understand a word of what they say. I'm a graduate, fluent in French, passable in a couple of other languages; I'm writing a cartoon-strip style textbook to teach Latin to young children....(which is why I'm using Corel Paint), but I'm starting to think I must be a dimwit.

Is there a book, perhaps, that will take me through the program in nice easy stages? The difficulty with tutorials is that they deal with specific projects, which might or might not include the features I want to use.

Sorry about the rant. You might suspect I'm feeling a bit frustrated.
Sigh.

[Mangly]

The Tiff thing doesn't work; all I get is a blank white space when I paste the tiff image into Corel. Interestingly, it does work in Twisted Brush, another Paint program I've got.

[molucca]

A couple of screen shots. A Photoshop File into Painter. This was a PNG/alpha. It loaded with a white background, and the image. You can load a selection from the image layer. When you load a selection, it can be saved in Painter. Selections get saved as an Alpha channel. Look at the channel menu when the selection is saved. Once the selection is saved it becomes available, and it can be loaded back as a selection. I only know a little about how this works.

If you autoselect and get a selection, it can be saved and reused.

Rich

[molucca]

I have an old copy of Corel. I haven't used it in a long time. Rich

[molucca]

I loaded a PNG/alpha into Corel Paint 10, and tried a PSD export. The export said it didn't support the mask.

I changed to a TIF export. The Tif loaded into Painter with the alpha channel.

Rich

[remi]

Do you guys talk about Corel PHOTO-PAINT or Corel Painter?
These are different programs...

[molucca]

Remi,

We are discussion using Corel Paint files in Corel Painter.

Here is the Tif loaded into Painter IX.5. I loaded a selection from the alpha channel, and did a copy paste. The background layer in my view is a fixed basline. To get your image with a transparent background, making a selection in the background layer, doing a copy, and pasting, will create a new layer with the selection being pasted to the layer. Then turn off the background layer to see the new layer.

Rich

[molucca]

A view of the alpha channel. This was a 32 bit file. 24 bit color and 8 bit grayscale alpha. You might note to marque is an indication of the selection. The transparency is more than you might think from the marque.

Rich