How do you create a transparent cut out?

Post your tips & tricks here for creating slide shows with ProShow Producer. This could include suggestions for style and content in addition to working with the software itself
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Re: How do you create a transparent cut out?

Postby im42n8 » Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:46 am

You can take a multi-layer PNG and import it into PSP/PSG. No problem. When a multi-layer PNG or PSD or TIFF is imported into ProShow, it's displayed as tho it was a flattened graphic.

There was never any issue with confusing "layers" in a graphic to layers as used by ProShow ... at least not in this thread.

To make a color "disappear" in PSP, you can use the Chroma Key feature. However, that deals with color in the image and not the layers an image might have (PSP/PSG has no provision to actually edit an image ... ProShow creates a link an outside application for that purpose). To show a graphics' layers that exist below one of its multiple layers, you will need to directly edit the image itself ... and I'm assuming then that the format in that case will be either PSD or a Fireworks multi-layer PNG, typically.

As for saving a file as a PNG from within Photoshop, you're probably going to want to ensure that there is no background in the file being edited or that the background is turned off. When it comes to needing transparency in your graphic, PNG can really be your friend. You CAN use PSD (some do) but, you probably shouldn't. You're probably best off using a PNG file (it's usually smaller in how many KB or MB it requires relative to the parent image of PSD or TIFF) when transparency is needed.

Debbie is right, PNG has been supported by ProShow from the get go (along with TIFF and JPG) ... the transparency supported by PNG and TIFF was also supported from the start.

Dale
What's New: Tools for ProShow: v11.42a Access ProShow capabilities Photodex doesn't provide (For PSG & PSP).
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Re: How do you create a transparent cut out?

Postby heckydog » Fri Jan 17, 2014 2:44 pm

im42n8 wrote:Believe away ... most apps don't provide layers in PNG to have multiple layers. Saving to that format results in a flattened graphic. The native format for Fireworks (from Adobe) is "PNG" ... and yes, PNG has layers just like the Photoshop PSD format. Yes, the PNG format supports layers. And, those layers are present upon re-opening the file. But, you need a program that supports the layers. I believe Photoshop does import the PNG file made in Fireworks with the layers still intact...

Dale


a question about this was asked on superuser.com. The reply, in part, reads as follows (I added the bold formatting):

"PNG files do not have layers, so Fireworks layers are stored in the private chunks of the PNG files in a proprietary format which is not PNG. I don't know of any program that can read them. You'll need to ask the owner of these photos to convert them to flattened png (mono-layer) or into another multi-layered format such as psd."

By the furthest stretch of the imagination you may say that PNG files support layers, but as a practical matter, they do not. And most certainly they are not "just like the Photoshop PSD format".

The total number of people on this forum who use Fireworks to create PNG files for use in PSP/PSG probably numbers in the range of zero to one. . . . . . Two tops, I like to hedge my bets :D

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Re: How do you create a transparent cut out?

Postby im42n8 » Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:47 pm

Hecky,

In short, "So what?" It's a specious argument that's strictly on the highly technical side of things and is NOT of a particular concern to any ordinary user. PSD is a proprietary format that is based on the TIFF specification. So what.

The PNG file format used by Fireworks is identified as PNG and is readable by most other applications as PNG regardless of whether it has multiple layer or not ... it's irrelevant to them. Your source was from a 2009 thread. The author's experience may or may not have been accurate at the time. I know that I have never had a problem importing those files into Photoshop or CorelDraw/Photopaint... and I've been using Fireworks since around the mid-90s (when Fireworks was a MacroMedia product). At this time, many other up-to-date applications can and do read multi-layered Fireworks PNGs (and treat them as flattened ... and that includes ProShow). To the user, that's what's important. Graphic editors will simply flatten the imported FW PNG upon import.

So, it's NOT a "...furthest stretch of the imagination..." as you say, that PNG files support layers. However, as a practical matter, you only get layers in a PNG file if you're editing it in the Fireworks program. But, you also only typically get multi-layered PSD files in Photoshop too. However, it is a fact that any other application that edits a PNG file does so as a single layer to which multiple layers can be added ... and which becomes a flattened file when that application exports it to a PNG file. I'm sure that we will have to agree to disagree on this topic...

You must be a Photoshop snob! :D These folks often think that the only useful app for creating graphics or editing images is Photoshop. Wrong! However, it is true that larger majority use Photoshop ... followed by any number of other graphical programs (because Photoshop was so gawdawful expensive) that do pretty much the same thing. Nothing wrong with being a Photoshop snob ... I've met many of them in my time of playing with graphics. But, too, many of these folks were simply surprised that there were so many perfectly capable graphical editing programs around that could do much of what Photoshop could do without as much of the steep learning curve or the exorbitant associated cost. So, you might be surprised that there are more Fireworks users out there than you suspect. Regardless, it doesn't matter a whit.

Dale
What's New: Tools for ProShow: v11.42a Access ProShow capabilities Photodex doesn't provide (For PSG & PSP).
FPVP Blog "Making the Difficult Easier," FPVP News

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