Making Photoshapes

[leafroberts]

OK, I can't figure out what I am doing wrong. I made some png files for shapes. They are black and white png files and they look just like the ones that come with the program, but they don't work when I use the Change Shape option.

I tried different dpi because I noticed that some are 72 and some are 200. I tried different sizes because I know that Steve made his in several sizes.

Will someone please tell me how to make new shapes?

Leaf

[srussell]

You need to save the shapes as PNG's with transparency (32-bit). That should fix the problem... I made the initial mistake of saving the shapes as 8-bit PNGs

Anyone got anything different?

[leafroberts]

Thank you Steve for your response. That is what I love about this group. There is always someone willing to help.

Did you mean png24? That is what I was doing, but it did not work with those particular files. I could not find a png32 in my CS2 choices.

But, lo and behold, they did work as jpgs. Now figure that out.

I bought some templates that were black on white jpgs, and I thought I could make them work. So I reversed the color as jpg files and then converted them to png files. I never did get the png files to work. After hours of trying different strategies for pngs, I discovered that the jpgs I had made as an intermediate step do work. Can you beat that?

Life is full of little surprises.

Leaf

[srussell]

Yep, whatever works... JPGs will work too!

PNG 24 actually means a 24 bit (16.7 million color file) with an 8-bit (256 color alpha mask), so it is really a 32-bit file. Sorry about the confusion!

[leafroberts]

Photoshapes

As long as we are talking about photoshapes, I have another question. Does the amount of black area around the shape make a difference?

It seems to me that if the open part of the shape (white area) extends to the edges of the graphic more of the picture should show through. Is this correct?

Leaf

[srussell]

Yes... Trim up to the edge of the mask as close as possible so as much of the photo shows through as possible.