backgrounds with Gimp.

mmertens · 02-20-2003, 06:45 PM

Hola dear linux question-makers and linux-helpers !

I have a small question about images in Linux. Instead of .gif pictures y will have only .png pictures ... but cannot make the background invisible or transparent. How can I do this with Gimp or with other graphic applications under KDE3 ?

Thanks in advance for help and hints !

Saludos desde Bolivia
Manfred Mertens

cuckoopint · 02-20-2003, 07:28 PM

how do you want a transperant background - is there an image thats supposed to be under it ; or do you expect your the monitor's circuitry to show through???

mmertens · 02-20-2003, 07:59 PM

Hola,
thanks for answering and I apologize for the unclair English !!

For instance I have a logo, color, text and a picture. You see the whole thing as a white rectangle within the logo rests. How may I do that only the logo is visible, not the surrounding white rectangle ? With StarOffice was this possible cropping the image to the desired dimensions and then making the whites transparent with the pipete tool ... With OpenOffice I couldn't do this and also not with Gimp.

Thanks in advance for the interest and help !

Manfred

prophet621 · 02-20-2003, 08:24 PM

I'm not familiar with GIMP, I use Photoshop and I know they are somewhat simular so perhaps this may help. If not I apologize.

You can create seperate layers of the logo and rectangle with one of the selection tools and copy/paste and then modify either layer without affecting the other.

Also try to select the white rectangle with something like the 'magic wand' tool. Depending on the tolerance setting, when you click on an area it automatically selects connected area of simular color. Lower the tolerance, the more selective it is, hold down shift if you want to add more areas. (can also select the logo this way and copy/paste to create a new layer) Then adjust the transparency setting, shoud be in a small window, if not click 'view' and open it. This will adjust everything that has been selected while not affecting the rest of the image.

Hope this helps, again if not I apologize, as I said, I'm not familiar with GIMP so this may not work exactly as I described.

cuckoopint · 02-20-2003, 09:46 PM

yeah, just create a new image. use transperant as the background and all subsequent layers. then try the selection as described by prophet621 to select the logo - I dont know how complex the shape is but it sounds like the wand should work. I have only touched on gimp here and there so I wouldn't know much more.

maybe you could also try to find something in:
http://www.gimp.org/docs.html