how to paste a clean image

[James Allen]

Thanks Larry – your example was a good help.

Mind if I pick your brain for one other thing I am trying to do?

Any time, Tex.

Say I am looking at a graphics image and decide I want to select and extract just a part of the image... My first impulse is to take Xara's Selector Tool, hold down the left mouse button, and draw a box around the area to select it, like I'm used to. I can draw a box, but it disappears when I let go of the mouse button. What should I be doing?

The Xara file I’ve attached shows how to cut out a part of a photo with the freehand tool, but you can use this technique with any object, and any other object. You may place one rectangle over another, select both, and use the top one to cut out the other. You can cut, clip, intersect, join, group, blend and subtract shapes, photos and lines from or with each other or with whole groups. Once you get the hang of the one attached, you can experiment with all the variations of it.

But take heed: You may never escape from Xara World after you begin down this road.

[TXUSA]

Indeed, the more I get into the intricacies of this program the more hooked I become. Very addictive discovering new things one can do with the tools available, once I discern what all the tools are. Didn't really realize how robust the program was when I first bought it. I see what they mean when they say it's a very fast graphics program. Click and the task is complete. If only my brain worked as efficiently and quickly as the program I'm trying to conquer.

[wizard509]

If only my brain worked as efficiently and quickly as the program I'm trying to conquer.

I hear that. Same problem here.

[wizard509]

Those were all great tips James Allen. I think you were a big help to TXUSA.

[TXUSA]

Thanks to both of you, I've now got the hang of the freehand tool and using it to cut/extract objects from within objects. However, this only seems to work with free moving objects. But, the real problem I'm trying to resolve is this. A day or so ago I was playing around with creating different objects and overlaying them on different colored backgrounds on the workspace (I guess Xara calls it the page). In one instance I created a large dark blue rectangle and created another object to place over it, then grouped the objects, and locked everything in place on the page and then went on to other things. I continued to create other objects to play around with and essentially the "page" became full of various creative experiments. I never actually saved any objects, but kept the page open as a trial and error workspace.

Viewing the page today I noticed there is one image in the hodgepodge of creativity that I would like to actually capture and save for future use. However, I am way past the undo stages and the image I want to extract, as well as the background it was created on, were locked in place awhile back. If I am looking at a static graphic on the page there must be someway to select the part of the page that contains the piece I want to save, but I am in a quandary as to how to do it. I know in Ulead's program it was possible to use the Select Tool to draw around anything in the workspace, whether it was merged/locked to the workspace or not, and create/save the object selected. I'm thinking Xara must allow this also.

[James Allen]

When you say locked, it could mean group, blend or combine. If the objects are grouped, you can ungroup them by selecting them and pressing Ctrl/U. I would try this first, and you may have to ungroup a few times.

If some elements are blended together you may not want to release them from the blend, but then again you may, depending on what was released. To release a blend you select it, click the Blend tool (W), and click ‘Remove’. If the objects were combined you can try breaking them apart by selecting them and clicking ‘Arrange’ and ‘Break Shapes’. On the other hand, you might have a combination of grouping and combining, in which case you would ungroup and then break apart. Sometimes blends are blended with other blends, in which case all the blends might need separating and then ungrouping, etc.

So it depends what you actually did with all the objects to ‘lock’ them.

You can sometimes cut out a chunk of the whole group, by simply placing a rectangle (or other shape) over the lot, selecting both and intersecting shapes (Ctrl/3). If this changes things too much, it may be because you had lines or other elements that needed converting first. If so you can try selecting the main collection and converting it to editable shapes (Shift/Ctrl + S), and converting lines to shapes (Arrange/convert Line to Shape), before trying to cut out the section as per above.

So ungroup (maybe a few times), convert to editable shapes and convert lines to editable shapes (if necessary), break apart (if necessary), group all again, place a shape over the section, and try to cut it out.

How did it go?

[wizard509]

You might also look in the page and layers gallery. The padlock is blue(unlocked) or red(unlocvked). just click on the padlock icon to lock or unlock.

[James Allen]

I forgot to mention Clipview and bitmap copy.


This might be easier and faster for isolating a part of a collection of different objects (depending on what they are). I have attached a Xara file with details.