Posted by Bob_Bifford on 2012-04-07 09:02:52

link me please to the program :)

Posted by Shraaaag on 2012-04-07 09:05:29

Rated 6 for the use of GIMP (been using it for more than 10 years myself).

Posted by Garion on 2012-04-07 09:14:48

yeah the gimp is awesome :)

Posted by SvenS on 2012-04-07 09:24:36

http://www.gimp.org/

Posted by harvestmouse on 2012-04-07 09:51:56

Just ot of interest, what method do you use to remove white backgrounds? Hopefully it's better than the infamous Garion 'purple' method!!!

Posted by Garion on 2012-04-07 10:30:56

My purple method???

I get rid of the back ground in GIMP by creating a transparent layer behind the front image. Then I use the magic want click on the image, then click invert selection, then copy the image, delete the front layer and paste the image on to the transparent layer behind.

Posted by harvestmouse on 2012-04-07 10:50:16

You what now!!!! Sounds tricky, you'll have to teach me.

Didn't you use to - change background colour to purple, then change purple to alpha?

Posted by Garion on 2012-04-07 10:57:14

Yeah, I did that with a few pictures. That works as well, but you need to make sure you pick a colour that there is no trace of in the original picture, other wise it will remove that pigment from the image and the image will change hue as a result. But I only do that when I am creating images with transparencies from work because I dont have access to GIMP at work, so I just use online paint programs to do it and this is the easiest way to do it online.

But anyway in GIMP - It is really straight forward with the magic wand. -

1, Open your image
2, create a new tranparent layer
3, click on the magic wand then click on the white section of your image
4, right click and find "invert selection"
5, right click and "copy selection"
6, delete the first layer
7, click on the background tranparent layer and paste

and you are done :)

it sounds a lot harder than it is.

Posted by SvenS on 2012-04-07 11:04:48

Ahh I used the coler to alpha.
Thx for the instructions! =)
Hmm seems I forgot jpeg doesnt handle transperency...
PNG better then?

Posted by hale on 2012-04-07 11:14:28

Bring out the gimp!

Posted by Garion on 2012-04-07 11:16:48

yup png or gif

Posted by truckerpunk on 2012-04-07 11:53:18

Always good to see more people using gimp.. \o/

This is how I go about transparency:

1.Open image

2.Right click the layer, and select "add alpha channel" (if it's grayed out, it means the image already has an aplha)

3. select what needs to be transparent

4. press delete key.

5 export as *,png or *.gif

6. Done

Happy gimp'ing.

(2.8 release candidate 1 is out.. At least for linux)

Posted by SvenS on 2012-04-07 12:51:51

Awesome thx guys! :D

Posted by harvestmouse on 2012-04-07 14:34:41

Truckerpunk, how do you select the area? With the lasoo?

Posted by Garion on 2012-04-07 14:38:57

HM - the icons is magic wand or colour select I forget which one - http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-by-color-select.html

think it is colour select ???

Posted by Daudy on 2012-04-07 14:44:22

I haven't used GIMP, but for most things of this nature I use Paint.NET (another reasonably popular free program with many additional plugins available). Magic wand tool does it all, simply click on the white background and it'll do its thing and hit delete. You'll be left with your image in the same resolution, but now with a transparent background.

Posted by Garion on 2012-04-07 14:46:29

edit: it is both, magic wand is by region and colour selects by colour :)

so if you have a picture of a black cat with white eyes and a white back ground. If you click on the white background with the magic wand and press delete (on the keyboard)it will just delete the area around the cat making the back ground transparent.

If you used the select by colour tool on the white back ground then pressed delete it would also make the cats eyes transparent because they are white.

But before you do this you need to make an alpha channel or a traparent layer behind your image.

Posted by truckerpunk on 2012-04-07 18:14:39

@ harvestmouse

It depends on the image I need to crop. Often the "pick by color" works great if the image you need to crop is on a single colored background. After the selection is done, clean any mishaps with the lasso-tool (add/substract). It is often a good idea to grow or shrink, (depending on if you select what you need or what you don't need), the selection by 1-2px and feather it. This can be done in the select menu.

Hope it helps.

Posted by WhatBall on 2012-04-07 18:45:26

Rated six for transparency! \o/

Posted by SvenS on 2012-04-07 19:23:33

I've noticed the PNG files tend to get a bit bigger if converting from jpegs.
Try checking file size before uploading (can be done in GIMP by dropdown menu) so that its not more then 100 000 bytes.
Learned that the hard way, sorry again approvers should be fixed now.

Posted by truckerpunk on 2012-04-07 19:41:09

If you have trouble with the file size, try decreasing the number of colors in the image. This can be done in the colors menu (or image -> colors.. can't remember), select indexed, and decrease the number of colors. That should do it. Play around with it, so your image still looks pretty.

Posted by SvenS on 2012-04-07 20:04:44

Ok thx just scaled them down a bit.
This is turning into a proper handbook! :D

Posted by Rabe on 2012-04-08 12:05:38

Great information, gotta bookmark this one! :-D

Posted by Chainsaw on 2012-04-08 12:11:36

GIMP is awesome. I've been trying out the one-window variant, which is pretty nifty.

You can get it from http://www.partha.com/

2.7.6 is great!