Combining rendered and vector drawn graphics

[David McDonald]

Hi Phil

I’m not sure if JPEG file formats allow you to have a transparent background. As I recall GIF file formats do allow this option. (or they have done when I’ve designed web pages)

Some design applications have a ‘make transparent colour option’ – ie. you identifty a colour with an eye dropper type tool and it makes this colour transparent wherever it appears.

Failing that I design all the vectors in Flexi and export into Photoshop to use its tools to achieve your desired effect.

Macky

[Nancy Wannous]

Hi There does the file format have to be jpeg?
If not you can clip mask the file is photoshop save it as eps that will take the background off.
another way is if you have the file without the background in photoshop save the file as psd keep layers open in illustrator add whatever text or vector files in illustrator save as eps .
Then print it out 😉

[Alan Drury]

In Corel Draw make the desired shape then ‘powerclip’ (effects) your bitmap into it. The powerclip shape can be given an outline. Giving a bitmap a transparent backgroud will only work for black and white bitmaps (applies to Draw only) If you want to use a photo editor Corel’s PhotoPaint which comes with the suite will do the same job as Photoshop. If you go the powerclip route exporting that as eps and re-importing will keep the shape.
Alan D

[Paul Rollason]

Hi Phill

If you have photoshop, try clicking the magic wand on the white backgroung to select it, then press Ctrl+shift+I to invert the selection thus selecting the image then copy and paste.

This will put the image on a new layer.

now delete the background layer or just click the eye on the layer palette to make it invisable and now you have a clear backgroung (grey and white squares)

Save as a giff and make sure the transparency box is ticked

import into corel or whatever layout software you are using

This works well for placing images onto websites as well

paul r

[Phill Fenton]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

I have corel draw and corel photopaint. I managed to get this working using photopaint. 😀

[steve geary]

the only thing i can add Phil, since i only know corel draw and photo paint is:

You can crop the background and save with no background as a photopaint file. It will add a white backround if you open it with anything other than corel draw, or paint again. if you bring it into Draw and layer on top of vector or a j peg it will work, then you can export from draw the whole selection as a jpeg and it’ll look the way you want.

my knowledge is limited, but that’s how i do it.

steve