Automatically cutting around image & making background transparent (using XPGD6)

[rpc9943]

I wonder why Xara hasn't yet put a magic wand into the Photo Tool... they've already put a lot of other bitmap-editor-like features there Just like the "Enhance" stuff modifies the bitmap data itself, a Magic wand could just do the same and modify the alpha channel...

+1 yes

[haakoo]

@RonC,yes the deeppaint2.0 program is a legitimate(freeware)copy
(downloaded it myself again to test)

Hans

[rpc9943]

okay well i tried to external edit to PhotoShop cs3 erase to alpha, and then ctrl-s... looks like its default saving to bitmap.psd, but it isn't updating with an alpha in xara.... in the options I made sure it was set to .png Anything I'm doing wrong?

[handrawn]

if you get a save dialog box in PS it's not working

been awhile since I actually used this feature but as I recall it may not work if you use more than one layer in PS [it's only a shortcut - for serious work you open PS fully - right?]

I used to remove backgrounds with magic eraser, which only needs one layer

EDit - you should be okay if you flatten in PS before saving [ ok a bit obvious, but just thought I'd add in case]

[rpc9943]

ah maybe ive been using ctrl-shift-s... hope to figure this out... At home I will have to use another option, since I dont own photoshop at home, and i am not a software pirate perhaps deeppaint, gimp, or something similar

[molucca]

Try making a bitmap copy true color + alpha, and then running PS from Xara.

Rich

[handrawn]

dug out my notes - in the past i used it with:

photoshop and elements
gimp
corel painter
paint shop pro 9 [jasc]

it will also open in some painting programs that that are not editors eg painttool sai

@ MOLUCCA Rich I found that sometimes necessary too, especially if it opened in the editor in the wrong colour space.. [painter especially]

[molucca]

Steve,

This time you would be adding an alpha channel. PS seems to need that form to return a transparent graphic.

Rich

[rpc9943]

I've actually found that when photoshop has difficulties with magic wand and tolerance, exporting out to xara is BY FAR the best solution.... I actually used it today for precisely this reason, then exported to alpha png. GREAT! I also figured out how to use photoshop as the bitmap editor with alpha. Works sooo well! I just had to save the file as a .png in the directory that it was in originally!

Xara rocks. I take back my silly issues with wanting a magic wand. I still believe it would be awesome to not have to export/import to do this, but yeah.