A how-to question...

[Timaccer]

I have a jpg image of an old 45 record (round black disk, basically). When I have this opened up in PE2, of course, it is in the usual square window with a background around the record.

Here's my question: How do I extract the ROUND 45 record to paste into a web page? I can put it into the we page as is, but it has the square frame around it - i just want a completely round image of the record to give the page some interest.

Thank you!!
Rachel.

PSE2 on a Titanium PowerBook 550MHz, using OS X 10.2.6 (Jaguar).

[Jodi Frye]

Double click on layer in layers palette so that it is no longer a background layer ( it will ask you to name it or use the default layer 0...click OK )Use the elliptical marquee tool and make a selection around the record. If the record is a perfect circle then hold down the shift key while using the ellip marquee for a perfect circle, otherwise toggle the space bar while positioning the elliptical marquee selection. After selection is made, Select inverse>delete...go to file >save for web>choose a GIF setting and select transparency. Hope I didn't leave anything out.

[Nancy S]

Timaccer,

Since the record is black, the background probably differs contrast/color wise.

You might try the magic wand tool (and experiement with the tolerance), mark contingous if the background has any black in it. If any pixels are selected inadvertantly inside the record, the magic wand also has a 'subtract' mode to remove them from the selection (which would probably require a very low tolerance.)

Or, assuming the silouette of the record is quite distinctive colorwise, get the magnetic lasso tool, experiement with the parameters and loosely trace the outline.

When the entire record is selected, as denoted by the marching ants, you could;

* edit>copy>paste into a new document with a transparent background OR

* select>inverse>delete. This will remove all of the background leaving the checkerboard pattern which symbolizes transparence

* convert your image to a format which supports transparaency if you wish the record to not appear as though it is in its own 'box'(webpage background will show through). Gif supports transparency.

Save As>little black arrow pull down, select Gif (can rename if desired)

Nancy

[Nancy S]

Timaccer,

In this program there are always many ways to accomplish a task, Jodi had another approach...and she remembered to tell you to convert the background layer which I had forgotten!

Nancy

[Richard Coencas]

Yet another way is to fake transparency by using a matte. If you want to use a jpeg for instance. just change the areas you want to be transparent to the same color values of your webpage background. Use the hex values to insure that they match.

Rich