See through areas on imported images

[Sarah Carpenter]

Hello

Can anybody explain why when I import photograph images (JPEG) (scanned or from clip art collections) there is often areas of the image that go see through, ie, the background colour shows through. It usually is dark areas of the images.

I usually find that filling the page with a dark colour helps but was wondering what causes it?

Thanks

Sarah graemlins/wave.gif

[Margaret Allen]

Hi Sarah,

As you know I don't do technology smile.gif

BUT it is to do with transparency, not sure what it has to do with, but basically what you need to do is when you import it....

Design Mode
Double Click
Object properties
Ensure Transparent is ticked or is it unticked?
Well whichever one you will see the "see through" bits disappear. graemlins/clap.gif

With an explanation like that you can't fail :eek:

Let me know how you get on

[Sarah Carpenter]

Thanks Margaret graemlins/clap.gif

Nothing wrong with your explanation - I just had to ensure that the transparent option was unticked - so simple - I don't know why I hadn't asked before!!

graemlins/wave.gif

[Sarah Carpenter]

Hi again

I have just realised that the above problem has occurred when we have imported some clip art images too - we often get a grey box around the image - ticking the transparent box this time (as opposed to unticking it) solves that one. Thought other people may have experienced this annoyance and this might help them too.

graemlins/wave.gif

[Margaret Allen]

With the increased use of digital cameras and the fact that I have been into several schools recently where this has come up I thought I would raise this one again....+wave+

[MrB]

I am so impressed with the people on this forum! You guys have such great ideas. In reading this thread about areas becoming transparent on a JPG file, I was wondering if anyone has tried doing the opposite? What I'd like to do is take a JPG and figure out a way to make part of it transparent. I was thinking that if I brought it into a paint program and used a certain color to draw over the area I wanted transparent, maybe it would work? I just don't know what color to use, or if this is even possible. Anybody have any thoughts? Thanks!

[Stuart Collins]

I am so impressed with the people on this forum! You guys have such great ideas. In reading this thread about areas becoming transparent on a JPG file, I was wondering if anyone has tried doing the opposite? What I'd like to do is take a JPG and figure out a way to make part of it transparent. I was thinking that if I brought it into a paint program and used a certain color to draw over the area I wanted transparent, maybe it would work? I just don't know what color to use, or if this is even possible. Anybody have any thoughts? Thanks!

the colour that is used as the transparency colour is the one in the bottom right corner pixel of the image. So if you look at the bottom right and it is red (FF0000) then anything that is red in that image (FF0000) will be transparent if the option is selected.

[sartley]

If its a jpg and an image in which there may be thousands of different shades, one thing I did once - because it was quite time consuming, but worked was:

Placed the image on the flipchart page. Made it huge. I then took the fill pot and carefully used one colour to fill in the colour I wanted to be transparent. This meant quite a lot of fiddling with particular areas where there were, say, many different shades of blue, all of which I wanted transparent.
Having done this, I resized back to the original.

Then I used the snapshot tool to take a picture of the new image. I snapshotted to clipboard. I pasted to a Word doc, and from there copied it to Microsoft Photo editor. From there I was able to make the desired bits transparent.
I resaved and reloaded into the flipchart.

You can see why I don't do this often, but for something special/important, it is an option.

[MrB]

Thanks for the replies. After playing around a bit, I found a fairly easy way to do what I wanted to accomplish. I took the JPEG picture into paint. Then I picked a color that was not in the JPEG and used it to paint the sections I wanted to be transparent. Next I put the new image in my libarary. When I pasted it, I used the object editor to make the painted color transparent. . . and PRESTO! I used this technique to make a word wheel about planets. For the front of the wheel, I used a big picture of Mars with a transparant window in it. It worked really well. Thanks again.

[Margaret Allen]

errrrrr helllllloooooo...... and where is this wheel? :D

Seriously if you felt able to share, that would be fantastic... it is always good to get stuff from other teachers!! +wave+

[MrB]

Sorry I didn't post it the first time. I'm pretty new to the Activboard, and my flipchart was a bit primitive looking at that point. Here is an example of what I was trying to describe. :-/

[Rosie MacAlpine]

Very clever Mr B![clap] [clap] [clap]

I'll have to read this thread again to try and work out how to do it.
Cheers,
Wendy

[sartley]

Nice one, Mr B! [clap] Glad it worked! You've created a really nice effect and teaching tool with this. I'm sure lots of other people who look at it will think ... hmmm ... yes ... I could use this idea when teaching about Henry VIII and his six wives or ... some sort of numbers game in maths ... or .......

[Margaret Allen]

That is sooooooooooo cool. Well done! Fantastic![clap]

[caryn]

This is probably obvious but how do you make sure the planets only rotate and not "move" I can work out the other seemingly more complicated stuff!!! By the way it's a great effect! Well done[clap]

[Margaret Allen]

Hi Caryn,

I don't think you can... you just have to rotate and not move! ;) Click on the image and because the top circle is locked it picks up on the bottom image and you get your pick up handles including the rotation option....[clap] Is that what you mean:confused:

[MrB]

Thanks for the encouragement everybody. Caryn, I don't know how to do it either, but if you do a search for "Developer ideas," JennyB posts a filpchart. On the third page of the flipchart I think she does what you're talking about. (Sorry I didn't put a direct link to JennyB's post, but I don't know how to do that yet either :eek: ) Check it out and if you find out how it was done, please let me know. Thanks!

Tony (a.k.a. Mr. B)

[KGillespie]

Nice one, Mr B! [clap] Glad it worked! You've created a really nice effect and teaching tool with this. I'm sure lots of other people who look at it will think ... hmmm ... yes ... I could use this idea when teaching about Henry VIII and his six wives or ... some sort of numbers game in maths ... or .......

Hi Sharon,
Okay, I was having a fed up moment and made this flipchart, it is my first ever non-work related flipchart so please forgive my primitive effort! Just a bit of fun really and I'm trying to actually "use" the software properly a bit more. :eek:

Open the page notes for instructions.

I did a wheel on the 3rd page, but, I don't know, probably a bit difficult to put the names to the faces (and not entirely necessary) so I didn't bother making buttons and questions. Also it was REALLY hard to align them so well done Mr B for what you did with yours.

I made my "window" using layers and the erase tool.

Thanks
Katherine +wave+

[sartley]

Good one, Katherine! [clap] It is really hard to get photos to rotate to the correct angle - particularly if they are rectangular - see that's where Mr B scored - choose something circular and it's easier (but not easy!!) I'm sure it will give people lots of ideas!

[Margaret Allen]

Katherine.... I am impressed! Isn't it lovely when someone else inspires others... I love it![clap]

[J Boucke]

[clap] [clap] [clap] I just happened on to this discussion. I don't use primary, but was just looking to see if there were any interesting ideas floating about and whoa!!!. I echo Margaret's "that is so cool" comment of a few days ago. I just followed everyone's instructions created a shape in studio, added a second shape I wanted transparent, went to paint, pasted in, then copied back to studio and voila. Has this discussion been on the ACTIVstudio forum. This ranks up there with the eraser tool that has received such wide usage.
[clap] [clap] [clap]

[MrB]

About aligning images on a wheel. . .

Hi Katherine,

Great job on the wheel! Here's an idea that might help you with alignment. I tried it out on page 3 of your flipchart and it worked fairly well. On a blank page, I first brought in a wheel to help set the boundries. Next I drew a square approximately where I wanted the opening on the "front image" to be. Then I placed the first picture in the square and grouped it to the wheel. Then I moved the wheel to the next position, put the next photo in the square and regrouped the wheel to include the latest picture. I continued this process until all the photos were in. It was a little bothersome having to continuously group and ungroup, but by using the shortcut keys (Ctrl G and Ctrl U) it wasn't too bad.

Take a look at page 4 to see what I mean. The page notes explain the steps once again.

Hope this is helpful:-/

MrB

[KGillespie]

MrB how utterly BRILLIANT are you??? [clap]

That is a great idea. And thank you for doing it. I'll definitely use that idea again. The spy glass thing works really well too, better than rub and reveal. {}

Many thanks again. +wave+
Katherine