How to achieve transparency?

Jon J Panury wrote:

I have a scan of a lineatic structure (like pen-writing), format .jpg.
It is a black line on a white paper (="background").
I would now loke to have this line *without* background – or, with a transparent background – in order to insert it "over" an existing image (like e.g. .pdf) just as the line itself, no white "field".
Quite a simple task, one should think. But I don’t make it!
In PSE (version 6), I can by means of the magic wand choose the white part of the image, and then "delete" it so that the "pied" workspace surface becomes visible. I saved this, but then, on inserting it elsewhere, the white field was back there!

I have tried hard in the online help to find out how, read on "transparency", but it didn’t get any clearer to me.
Have tried it as .bmp and .gif also, but no success either.
Maybe these things don’t work in PSE altogether? Would I need PS-CS for this (can’t believe it, though).

JJ

To preserve transparency you need to save in .psd format. Would be same for full blown version.
Dave Cohen

"Jon J Panury" wrote: (clip) I can by means of the magic wand choose the white

part of the image, and then "delete" it so that the "pied" workspace surface becomes visible. I saved this, but then, on inserting it elsewhere, the white field was back there!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Have you tried the magic wand deletion AFTER placing the layer over the desired background? I think this has worked for me in the past.

Leo Lichtman wrote:

"Jon J Panury" wrote: (clip) I can by means of the magic wand choose the white

part of the image, and then "delete" it so that the "pied" workspace surface becomes visible. I saved this, but then, on inserting it elsewhere, the white field was back there!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Have you tried the magic wand deletion AFTER placing the layer over the desired background? I think this has worked for me in the past.

I assumed he was trying to save the image. There’s no problem creating the layer, I agree with what you posted but detail the steps so there is no confusion:
Open image
Set mode to greyscale
Promote to layer
Magic wand background
Invert
Copy selection
Paste

He should now see a new transparent layer above the original, turn off original (click eye) to see.
However, I suspect his problem is occurring after these steps, so he needs to post back and tell us what his ultimate objective is. Dave Cohen

Dave Cohen schrieb:

Jon J Panury wrote:

I have a scan of a lineatic structure (like pen-writing), format .jpg.
It is a black line on a white paper (="background").
I would now loke to have this line *without* background – or, with a transparent background – in order to insert it "over" an existing image (like e.g. .pdf) just as the line itself, no white "field".
Quite a simple task, one should think. But I don’t make it!
In PSE (version 6), I can by means of the magic wand choose the white part of the image, and then "delete" it so that the "pied" workspace surface becomes visible. I saved this, but then, on inserting it elsewhere, the white field was back there!

I have tried hard in the online help to find out how, read on "transparency", but it didn’t get any clearer to me.
Have tried it as .bmp and .gif also, but no success either.
Maybe these things don’t work in PSE altogether? Would I need PS-CS for this (can’t believe it, though).

I guess I mix up two things: Opacity (a layer property, for achieving proper work results) and transparency, which is a "pixel property" in an actual file.
A selected degree of opacity of one layer seems to have nothing to do with the transparency of pixels in the saved file – right?

I have been trying a lot with the "magical extraction" and the "magical rubbergum" (sorry, I just translate from PSE’s German naming), but do not seem to achieve the desired result.

JJ

To preserve transparency you need to save in .psd format.

But then, .PSD is not supported in the application in question, a PDF manipulating software, "PDF X-change Viewer" by Tracker software.

I want to create a custom "stamp" with a special "vignette" symbol. This is a possible and supported featuer in PDF-viewer. Andthere is quite a choice of supported file formats to derive the stamp image from; but alas .psd isn’t among them. bmp, png, gif, tif, jpg and the lot, but no .psd.

The stamps given by PDFviewer obviously do have "transparent" parts, as you can see the dolument "through" gaps and spaces: just like a proper stamp would look.

Dave Cohen schrieb:

Leo Lichtman wrote:

"Jon J Panury" wrote: (clip) I can by means of the magic wand choose the white

part of the image, and then "delete" it so that the "pied" workspace surface becomes visible. I saved this, but then, on inserting it elsewhere, the white field was back there!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Have you tried the magic wand deletion AFTER placing the layer over the desired background? I think this has worked for me in the past.

I assumed he was trying to save the image. There’s no problem creating the layer, I agree with what you posted but detail the steps so there is no confusion:
Open image
Set mode to greyscale
Promote to layer

Don’t know exactly what this means.

Magic wand background
Invert
Copy selection
Paste

Paste where?

My workflow was:

Open the original JPG
Magic wand background
Invert
Copy selection (the black "writing")

Starting a new empty file
set the opacity to 0%
fix transparent pixels (in the layer control section)
paste the "writing" (which evokes a new layer)

….ant *there* the muddle starts! The layer with the pasted writing has sort of a "background" of its own, and this background is *not* transparent…

What I miss is a functionality sort of "render selected pixels transparent". If that existed, one could select by means of the magic wand and easily create transparent "background".

(I am aware that notions like "foreground" and "background" are mere "intuitive vocabulary" for ease of use. The actual _file_ does not know of such diffenciations.)

He should now see a new transparent layer above the original, turn off original (click eye) to see.
However, I suspect his problem is occurring after these steps, so he needs to post back and tell us what his ultimate objective is.

see other reply

Dave Cohen wrote:

Jon J Panury wrote:

I have a scan of a lineatic structure (like pen-writing), format .jpg.

It is a black line on a white paper (="background").
I would now loke to have this line *without* background – or, with a
transparent background – in order to insert it "over" an existing image (like e.g. .pdf) just as the line itself, no white "field".
Quite a simple task, one should think. But I don’t make it!
In PSE (version 6), I can by means of the magic wand choose the white
part of the image, and then "delete" it so that the "pied" workspace
surface becomes visible. I saved this, but then, on inserting it elsewhere, the white field was back there!

I have tried hard in the online help to find out how, read on "transparency", but it didn’t get any clearer to me.
Have tried it as .bmp and .gif also, but no success either.
Maybe these things don’t work in PSE altogether? Would I need PS-CS for this (can’t believe it, though).

JJ

To preserve transparency you need to save in .psd format. Would be same for full blown version.

In Elements 5, pick save for web, GIF, make sure transparency is clicked on.

Also works for PNG. JPEG does not in general support transparency.

As for using it in a PDF, I pulled the GIF image into Word, put it in the foreground over some text, exported to PDF, and the PDF opened in Acrobat Reader with the background text clearly visible.

—
—
–John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

JPG format does not support transparency. Any transparent area in the image will be converted to white when the image is saved in JPEG format.

To preserve the transparent parts of the image, save the file in a format that is compatible with transparency, like .psd or .gif.

"Jon J Panury" wrote in message

I have a scan of a lineatic structure (like pen-writing), format .jpg.
It is a black line on a white paper (="background").
I would now loke to have this line *without* background – or, with a transparent background – in order to insert it "over" an existing image (like e.g. .pdf) just as the line itself, no white "field".
Quite a simple task, one should think. But I don’t make it!
In PSE (version 6), I can by means of the magic wand choose the white part of the image, and then "delete" it so that the "pied" workspace surface becomes visible. I saved this, but then, on inserting it elsewhere, the white field was back there!

I have tried hard in the online help to find out how, read on "transparency", but it didn’t get any clearer to me.
Have tried it as .bmp and .gif also, but no success either.
Maybe these things don’t work in PSE altogether? Would I need PS-CS for this (can’t believe it, though).

JJ

Heureka!

It seems that I hadn’t had in mind that I must fix transparency in *both* layers, not just in the "background" layer…

Saved it "for web" as PNG-24, and it worked fine.

Will try other formats later, like PNG-8 or GIF or BMP.

That one took me a heck of a while! 😐 And again, perseverance was rewarded… ;-))

JJ