Document size, fonts, blend shapes, transparency, help

[greenmorpher]

...consider the vector alternative which I mentioned before: fill a rectangle with a gradient and open the Attributes Dialog and check "align pattern". If you distort the the gradient by dragging the rectangle's corners, or by using "Distort Frame", it will be distorted as well, just as with the bitmapped version. Imo, this is the far better alternative: you can easily edit the gradient afterwards, you always have full resolution, and it saves hard disk space. The only disadvantage is that You can't apply the more advanced distortions to the gradient, though.

Ah, yes, I thought I saw that Burkhardt, then when I was working through stuff again, I lost the thread. Good -- that works much better as the illustration shows. Started off with a square, dragged out a side to a rectangle, then clicked "Align Pattern" as you suggested. Got an ellipse. That would have done the job. I threw in an extra colour in this one just for the fun of it.

Cheers, Geoff

[greenmorpher]

But as you say, it would be nice to have a gradient follow the outline. Here's what Canvas can serve up. Mind you, there is an error in this at lower point counts! (It does one or two points less than the outline is -- depending on whether it is an odd or even number.)

cheers
Geoff

[greenmorpher]

In any case, these jpeg artifacts look pretty bad to me - life would have been much easier with a higher quality version …

If you would like more advice, why don't you post a piece of the original logo (the same size as your screenshot would do) for others on the forum to play around with?

Good thinking, Burkhard. I'll try your suggestions, but in the meantime, the image I was working with is available at: http://ad-doctor-online.com/Digicel%20PNG%20Logo.jpg

It's a 168 KB JPEG -- save it off your wedbbrowser window. Yes, I agree it would have been nice to have had something better, but when a sponsor is paying you $10,000, they tend to get irritable when you suggest they are not cutting the mustard because they hand our JPEG copies of their logo. It should have been a PDF vector, of course.

(But then, the organization I was working for with this also had a bit map logo -- and bloody awful it was too!)

cheers
geoff

[bkh]

Just tried "Select Color" with a tolerance of 50 % and got the following.

Screen shot 2010-06-08 at 15.21.52 .png

I think looks quite ok and comparable with what you got with Canvas. Admittedly, the results are not as good when you also consider the black text below the logo. You'd have to move the black text to a separate layer and use a different (higher) tolerance setting.

As far as I can see, the magic wand/transparency wand don't work as well if antialiasing or jpeg artifacts are involved. In fact, I would love the wands to support smooth selection, just the way "Select Color …" does.

Yes, I agree it would have been nice to have had something better, but when a sponsor is paying you $10,000, they tend to get irritable when you suggest they are not cutting the mustard because they hand our JPEG copies of their logo. It should have been a PDF vector, of course.

Didn't mean to offend you. I am sure you would have used something better if it had been available. I was just thinking how much time one could save if everybody knew what graphics format to use for which purpose …

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Hoogo]

For that star with the gradient: Try the layer-effect "Inner Blend".

And to the logo: I come to the same conclusion as bkh, it was work to turn it into a perfect 2-color-picture, but only little
-I picked the "Black" with the colorpicker, switched back/foregroundcolor and picked red, too.
-Then I used histogramm correction to clip at 98%. That removed the jpg-artifacts.
-big lasso arount the red part, selected smooth white with 50% tolerance to alpha
-Brush worked on whole picture, exept Alpha-channel. Now there's not the slightest artifact or color posioning left.
-inverted the lasso, so I selected the "black" text below.
-selected smooth white with 85% tolerance to alpha.
-Switched fore/background, brush worked on whole picture, exept Alpha-channel.

[Martin Huber]

And to the logo:

My try:
- I drew two filled rectangles: a red one covering the red text, a black one covering the black text
- Afterwards I created a clipping layer based on the blue channel of the image.
- Then I inverted this clipping layer and cut off the noise with the Curves tool.

logo.pld.zip

Martin

[greenmorpher]

Just tried "Select Color" with a tolerance of 50 % and got the following.

I think looks quite ok and comparable with what you got with Canvas. Admittedly, the results are not as good when you also consider the black text below the logo. You'd have to move the black text to a separate layer and use a different (higher) tolerance setting.

First class result. I'll play with this method. I want to be able to make stuff work for me in PL because sooner or later, Canvas will stop working on Mac (it's supported only for Windows now) and I can't see myself moving to Windows to work in it. One major problem of moving is fonts.

As far as I can see, the magic wand/transparency wand don't work as well if antialiasing or jpeg artifacts are involved. In fact, I would love the wands to support smooth selection, just the way "Select Color …" does.

That's what the wand in Canvas is doing, I suppose.

Yes, I agree it would have been nice to have had something better, but when a sponsor is paying you $10,000, they tend to get irritable when you suggest they are not cutting the mustard because they hand our JPEG copies of their logo. It should have been a PDF vector, of course.

Didn't mean to offend you. I am sure you would have used something better if it had been available. I was just thinking how much time one could save if everybody knew what graphics format to use for which purpose …

I wasn't offended, Burkhardt, just pointing out that I was stuck with what was, relatively, rubbish. You should have seen some of the others ...

I find it incredible when people are spending vast sums of money on marketing and they don't have a credible piece of graphics readily available. For another sponsor, I actually had to trace and redraw their logo or not use it at all.

Regards, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Advertising, Business Writing, Marketing with zing!
See how we think, what we do, how we can help you: http://www.marketnow.com.au

[greenmorpher]

Hi Hoogo & Martin

There ought to be a way to set up an action or something based on your methods, surely?

I go back to Canvas:

1) Select picture.

2) Go Menu Bar > Image > Add Visibility Mask.

3) Click on white area with Wand tool. (And possibly check one or two options)

4) Hit "Delete".

Nice and simple.

cheers
Geoff

[Hoogo]

1) Select picture.
2) Go Menu Bar > Image > Add Visibility Mask.
3) Click on white area with Wand tool. (And possibly check one or two options)
4) Hit "Delete".
Nice and simple.

Yes, that's simple, and PLs "select color" seems to be a similar tool for masking. That's the way bkh has done it, and to me it looks better that the result of canvas.
Martin an me did one step more than just the masking, we did cope with that "color poisoning", the mixed colors at the edges (There is an option named somehow like that in the refine edge tool of CS5, that name describes the effect nicely, I think).That's a bit more work to do, but the results are even better.

[bkh]

Martin an me did one step more than just the masking, we did cope with that "color poisoning", the mixed colors at the edges (There is an option named somehow like that in the refine edge tool of CS5, that name describes the effect nicely, I think).That's a bit more work to do, but the results are even better.

Checking "Smooth selection" in "Select color …" also addresses the mixed colours to some extent, adding some transparency to the mixed colours so that a dark background can shine through. It doesn't really "unmix" the colours, though. In order to do so, one would have to sharpen the edges in the colour channels (but not the alpha channel). I might try and experiment with this a bit in the next few days.

There ought to be a way to set up an action or something based on your methods, surely?

Sadly, Martin's and Hoogo's methods work in this particular case, based upon the knowledge that the original text is pure red and pure black, respectively, but as far as I can see, they cannot easily be used as general purpose methods.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[greenmorpher]

For that star with the gradient: Try the layer-effect "Inner Blend".

Ah, excellent. But there we go again with the interface -- we have two different kinds of blends, it seems, and two different ways of playing with them.

Make it one way!!! Keep it simple!!!

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

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