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Logo on transparent background


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petkum

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hello everybody,

i am new in this forum (and pretty new with photoshop) and have my first question:

i have a black logo on white background. how can i get this logo on transparent background, that there is just the logo when i put it in xpress and no background. i know it has something to do with making it a path, but actually i am a little lost here...

i look forward to your answers !
 
Hi petkum and welcome to the forum! :)

Firstly, make sure that your image is in an RGB format and that it is editable. IOW words, if you open it up and it says "Index", go to Image>Mode and click on RGB. Now your file will say Background with a little lock icon on it in your Layers palette. To unlock and make the file editable, just double-click on the layer in the Layers palette.

You you will have to remove the white background from your logo. If it's a solid white background, the magic wand tool should do a bangup job on making a selection. Just click on the white background area of your image and hit delete.

You can export your image as either a GIF or PNG file, the only two formats that support transparency, for your purposes. To lessen the "jaggies" around your logo, you should matte your file with a colour to match the background that you will be putting it on.

I hope that this helps and answers your question. If you have any problems, don't hesitate to ask some more. ;)

Enjoy PS and the forum! [excited]
 
whoa, that was quick!!! thanx very much wbiss...

i was in the forum sometimes and everybody seems to be very nice and it really looks that you don't have to feel stupid if you don't even know the easiest questions - that's great...

to my little problem: i tried it your way but it still doesn't work. everytime i try to import the picture in xpress i have a white background [doh]

like i mentioned before, i heard somewhere that it has something to do with a path. i seem to have to make the logo a vector image and then it should work. but how do i do ???

please help...
petra[/b]
 
Quark XPress needs clipping paths to be able to use transparancy.

Everything inside the Clipping path is opaque, everything outside it is transparant.

In itself this is not complicated, but very tricky (as you well know).

First you need to select your logo, then you have to make a working path from the selection, next step is to give the path a real name, and the to clip it at a value of some 3 for flatness. Lastly save as Photoshop EPS.

If you're new to PS, this can be a bit complicated though...
 
Well I don't know what you know about Photoshop, Illustrator,...but if you use XPress you must be familiar with clipping paths.
I also don't know what your logo looks like.

But you can proceed as follows:

1/ Open that logo in PS
2/ Image>Mode>Greyscale (Bitmap is too limited to work with)
3/ Go to Channels Palette and duplicate the greychannel.
4/ Invert this duplicate and make selection out of it.
5/ Deactivate the duplicated channel or discard it (keep the selection!!!) and reactivate the normal greyscale
6/ Go to Paths palette and make path from selection (all this with the icons at the bottom of the palettes).
7/ Double click the workpath to turn it into a real path. Give it a recognisable name.
8/ Click the little triangle in the upper right-hand corner of the Paths Palette and choose Clipping Path from the drop down list.

The flatness setting means the following: instead of remembering curves (mathematical formulae) these are turned into small straight lines. The shorter these are, the more they will be able to exactly follow the original curved line. BUt the more memory they will take. 3 is a good setting for rather detailed reproduction of complex curves. For a simple rectangle you can use a far higher setting.

9/ Save as photoshop eps or tiff. I don't know whether XPress can do anything with tiff yet, but that is something you will certainly know.
 
My misunderstanding petkum... I didn't know that you were refering to Quark! :\

Yes, as I recall, Quark does indeed handle TIFFS. Unfortunately, I've never had to import an image with a transparent background so I have no experience with it.

I did find this information on the net:
Create transparent backgrounds in Adobe Photoshop on TIFF or TIF-LZW (RGB or CMYK) color images with Clipping Path by:

1. selecting an area of the image (with the wand tool) you want transparent
2. "inverse" so the image portion is selected
3. in Palette window under "Path" select Make Path, Save Path and give it a name
4. make it a "Clipping Path"
5. save as EPS

Then, place the EPS image in your brochure.
Click to expand...

Seems clear and simple enough... ;)
 
well, at the moment i am still at work and will have to wait until i come home :(|

but thank you for all the information - i'm positiv that it works now...

have a nice day everybody [excited]

petra
 
petkum, here's a bit of a "pictorial" tute that should help!
 
Thanks BlueMonster... I appreciate your commentary! And a BIG WELCOME to the board. :D

Sometimes a picture can paint a thousand words... and when I was reading through the directions that I had found on this topic (and your instructions too, Erik) it occured to me that for a "new user" (as Petkum described himself), a seemingly simple process to more experienced users is really all but that to a beginner. ;)

I look forward to hearing how this works for you Petkum! :)
 
woah, that is really great!!

i think i am the kind of person who needs the visual to understand things....

but my problem at the moment is that i still could not find the time to look at home at all of your solutions. but tonight or latest tomorrow i will have the results and i promise that your hear from me!!!!!!!!! ;\
 
hello everybody!

i am very sorry that it took me so long, but i had no time in the last 2 days until now.
I tried to follow your instructions, but even if i do everything like you tell me i just get an image in grey with a writing that says "postscript image" or so. i have the outlines of my logo but everything is grey with that writing in the back. the same happens when i fill the path with black before saving as EPS...

i wanted to attach a screenshot but somehow i cannot make it work! the filesize is 54 kb but i always get the message that the attachment is too big????? are there some difficulties with the server at the moment? the day before yesterday i couldn't even get to your homepage, i always got the message that he cannot locate the server (everything else was working, though).

i don't know if you can still help me, but please try !!!!!

merci to everybody and ? bient?t.....
 
Hi petkum!

I have no experience using EPS files in Quark, but I will give it a try later on today and report my findings back to you. ;)

Hmmm...54 kb is certainly within the board's size limitation. It could be that when you were attempting to attach same, something "buggy" was up at the time... [confused]

In the meantime, remember to size your screenshots to meet the maximum pixel width dimension of 650 and try again!
 
so i tried it again and again, in the end i even tried to put an image size of 6kb and saved it for the web ! it tells me "the attachment is too big, max. upload size 2MB"

i cannot anymore... :(|
 
Hi again petkum. :)

I ran an experiment using an eps file with a clipping path in QuarkXpress and it worked beautifully.

Just be sure to save the EPS in Photoshop using TIFF 8 bits/pixel in the preview option. From the sounds of it, you were using "none" and in that case, Quark will insert a dialogue box if no preview is available.

Also, after you import your image file in QuarkXpress, right-click on the picture file to modify it and choose embedded path from the drop-down menu.

Refer to my image below. I purposely used a yellow background so that the transparency was evident. I tested on both a print and a web document.
 
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