PNG transparency problem

**mcoombs** · 07 July 2007, 10:37 PM

I have created a logo (attached is a png as I could not figure how to add the coreldraw drawing) to use on my website. The plan was to add this to a coloured banner.

When I first exported this as a PNG a white box surrounded the logo. I managed to eliminated this by selecting masked area.

However the white circle within the logo is not transparent and when placed on a coloured banner it appears as a white circle.

Can someone please explain to me how I achieve this.

A point that might be relevant. I am using Coreldraw Essentials 2 which I believe is a slightly simplified version of Coreldraw 11

**Aunt Betsy** · 07 July 2007, 11:11 PM

When you export from a vector as a PNG the masked area is all the empty space. If you used a white object for the white circle, the space is not empty. You have to trim out the object to create an empty space. Try checking it on a colored background before exporting.

**mcoombs** · 08 July 2007, 09:19 AM

Thank you,

Thank you, I will trim the object. I have never done this but I'm sure it's straight forward.

I notice in the X3 overview on the Corel website that the colour palette has transparent white. Would this have solved the problem? or is that just a lazy way of producing the image.

Do any other versions of Coreldraw offer this facility?

Can you also explain please the purpose of the Image Color option when exporting as a PNG?

Mike

**mcoombs** · 08 July 2007, 09:23 AM

Trimming - that was easy.

I wish I'd known about that a long time ago !!!

Thanks
Mike

**Aunt Betsy** · 08 July 2007, 01:58 PM

Hi Mike,

I'm glad you got your graphic to look right. I'll will try to answer a couple of your questions.

"I notice in the X3 overview on the Corel website that the colour palette has transparent white. Would this have solved the problem? or is that just a lazy way of producing the image."

Transparent white lets what's behind it show through, in this case it would have been your purple triangle. PNG graphics support transparency, if you apply a percentage of transparency to an object with nothing behind it, your background color would have shown through it according to the percentage.

"Do any other versions of Coreldraw offer this facility?"

My previous version of Draw before I got X3 was 9. There was no support for PNG files at all. I don't know in what version that changed. The PNG support is one of my favorite things about using X3.

"Can you also explain please the purpose of the Image Color option when exporting as a PNG?"

The Mask option is not supported in all the different color modes. It is the best option to use when available.

"Trimming - that was easy.

I wish I'd known about that a long time ago !!!"

You could have also "Combined" your circle and triangle to get a similar result, but trimming probably was the best option in this case.

**sallybode** · 08 July 2007, 08:53 PM

PNG offers more detail for graphics than .gif. It also takes more bandwidth. As so many people have a cable modem or high speed internet, the size of a graphic no longer matters.

For a long time, IE (Internet Explorer) did not support transparency with .png. I haven't tested it, but it would seem that if I were them this would be top on my list to fix.

Everything Aunt Betsy said is exactly right on. Here is a link to a movie that really shows how to manage .png in DRAW and PhotoPaint to get the most out of the program

http://www.unleash.com/jeffh/pngfromdraw/index.asp

**mcoombs** · 10 July 2007, 06:27 PM

Thank you both,

I've made real progress.

Mike

**Sark** · 12 July 2007, 02:11 PM

Aunt Betsy said:

My previous version of Draw before I got X3 was 9. There was no support for PNG files at all. I don't know in what version that changed. The PNG support is one of my favorite things about using X3.

Aunt Betsy, I'm pretty sure CD9 had .png support, but it was not available by default, you needed to go into options to enable, or disable, the available file formats you wanted available when saving/exporting. I still do this for my version 12 of CD.

Sark

**Aunt Betsy** · 12 July 2007, 11:37 PM

Thanks Sark,

Your right, I checked my CD9 and found the png filter, I didn't know that it was there. What CD 9 doesn’t do is allow you to copy and paste out of Photo Paint and into CorelDraw with a transparent background.

**Sark** · 13 July 2007, 11:39 AM

It's a quirk of Draw. A lot of what I would expect to be defaults are hidden functions.

I work with Photoshop so need to export anyway, but like you I upgraded from CD9 (to CD12) to use the Clipboard. In my case it was to get Vectors into Photoshop. The Oberon Script that does this only works in post 9 versions. I liked CD9, but like yourself have found upgrading definitely worthwhile.

Sark