Importing Photoshop element into Freehand problem. Please help!

"randwill" wrote in message

Can someone help me with what must be a simple problem that I can’t seem to solve.

I simply want to import a piece of scanned line art from Photoshop 7 into a document in Freehand 9.

The line art, which is black lines, needs to be white inside of the boundary of those lines against the solid color background of the Freehand doc. For simplicity, lets say a ball, drawn with a black line, which is white inside, sitting on a blue background. (Yes, I know I can draw a ball in Freehand, it’s just for the example.)

What I have tried:

In Photoshop, I select the white space around the ball with the Magic Wand then chose Select > Inverse to get the ball selected. Then I, Layer > New

Layer via Copy, which creates a new layer with just the ball, white

inside and no white background around it, I see the gray checkerboard pattern where the ball isn’t.

But when I go to my Freehand doc and choose File > Import and bring in this Photoshop element it appears as a white rectangle (the Photoshop canvas) with the ball in it. I don’t want the stupid white rectangle, just the white ball.

What am I doing wrong?

What file format are you saving in? If JPEG, you are out of luck if you want the background to be transparent, Try saving it as a PNG file.(does PS 7 support this, can’t remember?)
In your example, I would alt + click on the background layer to make it "editable".
Then select the white backround with the magic wand.
Hit delete to remove the background.(make it transparent.) Save it as a PNG.

TWK

"Toobi-Won Kenobi" <Toobi-won > wrote in message

What file format are you saving in? If JPEG, you are out of luck if you want the background to be transparent, Try saving it as a PNG file.(does PS 7 support this, can’t remember?)
In your example, I would alt + click on the background layer to make it "editable".
Then select the white backround with the magic wand.
Hit delete to remove the background.(make it transparent.) Save it as a PNG.

TWK

I was saving the PS file as a TIFF.

I’m on a Mac (also posted question in adobe.Photoshop.mac, but it seems little used) so I don’t know what the Mac equivalent of alt + click is. Doing this in Mac doesn’t seem to do anything. Is this step necessary before clicking on the white space outside the ball with the Magic Wand?

With the white background selected, hitting the Delete key does nothing and there is no option under Edit to delete, only Cut, Copy and Clear, none of which has any visible result.

When I select the area outside the ball with the Magic Wand it marches the ants around the ball and the edge of the canvas. Inverting this selection makes the ball the selection. And Layer > New > Layer via Copy produces a layer that has a transparent background which is what, I think, I want and what your steps also seem to create.

Anyway saving my result as a PNG (yes, supported in PS 7) and importing into the Freehand doc still produced the image with the damn white box.

This seems like a simple thing that people would do all the time. Why is it so difficult?

"randwill" wrote in message

"Toobi-Won Kenobi" <Toobi-won > wrote in message

What file format are you saving in? If JPEG, you are out of luck if you want the background to be transparent, Try saving it as a PNG file.(does PS 7 support this, can’t remember?)
In your example, I would alt + click on the background layer to make it "editable".
Then select the white backround with the magic wand.
Hit delete to remove the background.(make it transparent.) Save it as a PNG.

TWK

I was saving the PS file as a TIFF.

I’m on a Mac (also posted question in adobe.Photoshop.mac, but it seems little used) so I don’t know what the Mac equivalent of alt + click is. Doing this in Mac doesn’t seem to do anything. Is this step necessary before clicking on the white space outside the ball with the Magic Wand?
With the white background selected, hitting the Delete key does nothing and there is no option under Edit to delete, only Cut, Copy and Clear, none of which has any visible result.

When I select the area outside the ball with the Magic Wand it marches the ants around the ball and the edge of the canvas. Inverting this selection makes the ball the selection. And Layer > New > Layer via Copy produces a layer that has a transparent background which is what, I think, I want and what your steps also seem to create.

Anyway saving my result as a PNG (yes, supported in PS 7) and importing into the Freehand doc still produced the image with the damn white box.
This seems like a simple thing that people would do all the time. Why is it so difficult?

It wasn’t too clear in my original post.
alt+clicking (option+clicking on a Mac) on the background layer IN the layers palette will unlock (renames)the layer, making it editable. This is quicker than creating another layer (via copy?) containing the isolated ball. BTW, what are you doing with the background layer before saving? If you are including it in your save, you will still have a white background when you open the file in
You should then be able to select the white and with the selection active, hitting delete will remove it, leaving your line art surrounded by the chequer board pattern.
When saved as a PNG, the background will be transparent. Are you a subscriber to the Mac forum at WWW.Adobeforums.com (free registration)? You can’t just post via an NG like this one. On occasion, this NG sees the posts from the windows users at the adobeforum, but they cannot see the posts to this NG. That is why non forum posters think they are being ignored.

HTH

TWK

"Toobi-Won Kenobi" <Toobi-won > wrote in message

"randwill" wrote in message

"Toobi-Won Kenobi" <Toobi-won > wrote in message

What file format are you saving in? If JPEG, you are out of luck if you want the background to be transparent, Try saving it as a PNG file.(does PS 7 support this, can’t remember?)
In your example, I would alt + click on the background layer to make it "editable".
Then select the white backround with the magic wand.
Hit delete to remove the background.(make it transparent.) Save it as a PNG.

TWK

I was saving the PS file as a TIFF.

I’m on a Mac (also posted question in adobe.Photoshop.mac, but it seems little used) so I don’t know what the Mac equivalent of alt + click is. Doing this in Mac doesn’t seem to do anything. Is this step necessary before clicking on the white space outside the ball with the Magic Wand?
With the white background selected, hitting the Delete key does nothing and there is no option under Edit to delete, only Cut, Copy and Clear, none of which has any visible result.

When I select the area outside the ball with the Magic Wand it marches the ants around the ball and the edge of the canvas. Inverting this selection makes the ball the selection. And Layer > New > Layer via Copy produces a layer that has a transparent background which is what, I think, I want and what your steps also seem to create.

Anyway saving my result as a PNG (yes, supported in PS 7) and importing into the Freehand doc still produced the image with the damn white box.
This seems like a simple thing that people would do all the time. Why is it so difficult?

It wasn’t too clear in my original post.
alt+clicking (option+clicking on a Mac) on the background layer IN the layers palette will unlock (renames)the layer, making it editable. This is quicker than creating another layer (via copy?) containing the isolated ball. BTW, what are you doing with the background layer before saving? If you are including it in your save, you will still have a white background when you open the file in
You should then be able to select the white and with the selection active, hitting delete will remove it, leaving your line art surrounded by the chequer board pattern.
When saved as a PNG, the background will be transparent. Are you a subscriber to the Mac forum at WWW.Adobeforums.com (free registration)? You can’t just post via an NG like this one. On occasion, this NG sees the posts from the windows users at the adobeforum, but they cannot see the posts to this NG. That is why non forum posters think they are being ignored.

HTH

TWK

Option+double click on the layer in the layers palette.
TWK

"Toobi-Won Kenobi" <Toobi-won > wrote in message

It wasn’t too clear in my original post.
alt+clicking (option+clicking on a Mac) on the background layer IN the layers palette will unlock (renames)the layer, making it editable. This is quicker than creating another layer (via copy?) containing the isolated ball. BTW, what are you doing with the background layer before saving? If you are including it in your save, you will still have a white background when you open the file in
You should then be able to select the white and with the selection active, hitting delete will remove it, leaving your line art surrounded by the chequer board pattern.
When saved as a PNG, the background will be transparent. Are you a subscriber to the Mac forum at WWW.Adobeforums.com (free registration)? You can’t just post via an NG like this one. On occasion, this NG sees the posts from the windows users at the adobeforum, but they cannot see the posts to this NG. That is why non forum posters think they are being ignored.

HTH

TWK

Thanks for the clarification of the method of creating an editable document. I had forgotten this.

I created a correct-looking file this way (black line, white inside of the black line, gray checkerboard pattern visible elsewhere) and saved as a PNG. But when imported into the Freehand art, it STILL shows up as a white box with the art inside the box.

"randwill" wrote in message

"Toobi-Won Kenobi" <Toobi-won > wrote in message

It wasn’t too clear in my original post.
alt+clicking (option+clicking on a Mac) on the background layer IN the layers palette will unlock (renames)the layer, making it editable. This is quicker than creating another layer (via copy?) containing the isolated ball. BTW, what are you doing with the background layer before saving? If you are including it in your save, you will still have a white background when you open the file in
You should then be able to select the white and with the selection active, hitting delete will remove it, leaving your line art surrounded by the chequer board pattern.
When saved as a PNG, the background will be transparent. Are you a subscriber to the Mac forum at WWW.Adobeforums.com (free registration)? You can’t just post via an NG like this one. On occasion, this NG sees the posts from the windows users at the adobeforum, but they cannot see the posts to this NG. That is why non forum posters think they are being ignored.

HTH

TWK

Thanks for the clarification of the method of creating an editable document. I had forgotten this.

I created a correct-looking file this way (black line, white inside of the black line, gray checkerboard pattern visible elsewhere) and saved as a PNG. But when imported into the Freehand art, it STILL shows up as a white box with the art inside the box.

I’ve created a little PNG file at
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1GSWjUc1Nz97ObToHV hiBI1tKR6iIc0

Download it (right click on it and save picture as)as a PNG and see what happens when you import it into Freehand. (don’t have it) I have done this with my other graphics apps and the transparency is preserved.

TWK