Alpha shading?

[mxyzptlk]

I know that the ability to use the png format adds the ability to alpha shade...
But how does it work?

I have both the gimp and PS.

[xtishereb]

Alpha shading is another word for partial transparency.
You can mess with the layers dialog box in The GIMP to make things partially transparent. I'm not sure of an easier way, but it probably involves painting at not 100% opaqueness.

[mxyzptlk]

Do you still use the green? Do you just shade out the green?

I'm sorry, I know transparancy, just foggy on the usage here.

[Will]

hmm it would be worth to try not using the lime green...

for simple graphics like this, just use paint.net. It's very  easy to make half transparent colours and then just draw with those if you want

[mxyzptlk]

I'll try it.
Thanks for the tip.

[xtishereb]

You don't need the green, though anything with a color of #00FF00 will still be invisible, I believe, no matter what its transparency value is. You can just make the pixels you want invisible totally transparent.

[mxyzptlk]

Oh, sweet, thanks for that.

[Espadon]

GIMP's very close to Photoshop, which is my IMP of choice. I dunno about PSP =\

Here's a screen of my work: visible alpha controls are circled in red:

[mxyzptlk]

GIMP's very close to Photoshop, which is my IMP of choice. I dunno about PSP =\

Here's a screen of my work: visible alpha controls are circled in red:

Ok, now THATS useful.

I have CS2, I'm sure it'll have something like that.

[Keron Cyst]

I think in The GIMP you can just highlight a portion of the graphic and hit Del and it'll make the selected area trans. (but that method, although fast, is flat... it doesn't achieve the smooth fadeaway effect the graphic .·: êšþãÐøñ :·. posted demonstrates)

[Serial K!ller]

In the gimp you can deselect the color layers or you can add a mask on a layer where you can edit the transparency full black is transparent and white is non transparent.


And you can also cut out the green (add alpha layer first) and if you then do filter like


Then you can draw in the mask with color range, pensels etc

On existing images you can also make the green invisible and then do a filter like motion blur etc ti add alpha effects

[Espadon]

The last comment by SK is what I do to convert bitmaps to alpha. When I boot a bitmap up, the initial layer is locked and opaque. I set "new layer" on top of it, and by default, new layer is transparent. I cut and paste the bitmap to the new layer, and use the wand (set this to 0 tolerance, antialiasing to off, and uncheck contiguous) to trim off the green. I fill the original background layer with black so I can easily see what I'm doing in the alpha layer...

...I'll use my plasma bolt as an example. I made another copy of the new layer (now transparent with a plasma bitmap in it) and gaussian-blurred (under filter->blur) the layer to get the plasma haze. I made another new layer (I'll call this new(2)) and overlaid the plasma bitmap in new(2) over the correct location in new(1). Then I slightly gaussian-blurred new(2) to blend into new(1), then merged the two layers. Then delete the old locked layer, and save as a PNG. That's how I did my plasma bolt.

If I was unclear in the above description please let me know.