StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I am incapable of understanding the built-in tutorial for just this action, so be gentle.

I have an image with a white background I want to make a transparency. However, layers are terrifying and I can't really use PS CS to save my life. Can someone help?

Stark wrote:I am incapable of understanding the built-in tutorial for just this action, so be gentle.

I have an image with a white background I want to make a transparency. However, layers are terrifying and I can't really use PS CS to save my life. Can someone help?

Grab the magic wand tool. Select the white bit. Double check that you only have the white bit selected. Invert the selection. Copy and paste into a new image. Make sure the new image has a transparent background when you create it.

Thanks, that worked well. I have another n00b problem, however.

The images need to look okay at 256x256 on a 1024 or 1280 display... and this one is from a really poor source. Ideally I'd like to smooth it a bit and make it look a bit cleaner, but I'm not sure what to do. Ideas?

Solution one: blow up the original to 512x512 or 1024x1024. Redraw over the original. Shrink new image back down to 256x256 (resizing larger, then smaller, is to minimize effect from bad tracing.) Hard if there's a bunch of color gradients. Very easy if it's mostly bands of color

Solution two: try using the various denoise filters and such to clean it up. Doesn't look as nice as the above solution.

Solution three: do solution one, but in illustrator. This allows you to later blow it up to whatever size you want, but requires yet another program.

It would be alot easier to give you instruction in person. Since I'm fairly competant at Photoshop, you should wire me sufficient funds to pay for an Australian Spring Break vacation immediately and I will personally tutor you in computer graphics.

How does one invert selections? I've never heard of that one.

Pick wrote:How does one invert selections? I've never heard of that one.

In photoshop, go to the select menu. Should be menu-items for select all, deselect and inverse. Selecting inverse will invert the selection.

Okay, I found a better source for that image (I stole it out of a briefing animation). However, I'm left with a slight black border around the outside, and I'm not sure what art folks would think about that. I mean, space is black... but it's not very tidy. Ideas?



EDIT : Shit. The first place I post it, and now I can see a bunch of not-very-transparent transparent parts. Is there a tool is PS that makes semi-transparent bits easier to see? The fading chequer pattern isn't very helpful.

EDIT2 - all of the images seem to have 'sort-of-transparent' areas, but they look fine in-game. The GTA symbol (leftmost) is a little too wide and thin to be very visible and has a few too-dark areas between the sun/moon tines. I'm not really sure how to clean these images up.