transparency

[briansansone]

What file types preserve transparency?

I am trying to make a logo that consists of transparent letters over solid
color. The paper the logo is printed on should be the "fill" for the letters.
Hope that makes since.? I have designed this in scribus, but no matter what file type I save the logo as, I get a solid white background saved with the logo. I can't place the logo on colored paper.

Thanks
Brian

[Soquili]

Hello Brian,

Welcome to Talkgraphics.

What graphics applications do you have?

I opened your .eps file with CorelDraw X4, exporting to png after selecting white as the colour to make transparent.

[briansansone]

Hi
I am using scribus at the moment wich is open source software. I tried exporting as a png, but I had the same problem. Is this possibly a glitch in scribus ?
I have used adobe in the past, and never had a problem. Selecting "paper" in the color option drops out the color in adobe. I can't find a similar option in scribus.
Thanks for the input.
Brian

[handrawn]

do you have gimp ? - also open source

with this you can import the png remove the white and export with transparency - if you are not sure how, I can post details

not familiar with scribus - it may be it does not support transparency in png, but its worth looking carefully at the export options to make sure

[briansansone]

I do use gimp, but I can't get the ghost script working for some reason. That is the component that emulates/translates postscript. So I cant Import eps or svg. I can import my png file, but I can't figure out to erase the white background.

Thanks for the help!
Brian

[handrawn]

hi

open your png

layer menu > transparency > colour to alpha

white should be set as default [you can of course change it]

click ok to remove

[briansansone]

Thanks again!

A few questions if you dont mind.

Why did that work(alpha to color)?

Why can't I open the image, select the white area with the "fuzzy select" tool,
then erase the selection? This is how I would do it in adobe, but his seems
to be quite different.

Brian

[handrawn]

you can do it that way.... but........ as I recall , there is no global [non-contiguous] setting in gimp, so you would need to select each white area in turn

colour to alpha does it all in one go - and you do not need to worry about tolerance/threshold settings, anti-aliasing settings etc

that said, it will not work too well if the contrast between color at the boundary is low - but that is true of all such tools I think

[briansansone]

Thanks again.
That helps immensely.
Brian

[handrawn]

glad it helped