Mood:
luckyNow Playing: oscillating fan - aaaaahhhhh.....
Another quiet day. I didn't play any movies on the new sound system ! In fact, I didn't do much at all today. Edited two of the remaining books for the pattern catalog, and refigured how much I have left to do. Six more books. If I keep at my current rate - or even slow down some ! - I'll be done before month's end. I'm sure it'll be a relief once I'm finished, since you won't have to read about it anymore !
Beloved Hubby, while tired, watched my image editing last night, and gave me a couple of much-appreciated tips and new tricks. He showed me how to use the ‘paste as transparent selection' tool, and while it was fun, the images weren't moveable once pasted. When I ‘paste as new layer', they can be moved around until I save it off. I commented that, while this new skill wasn't as good for my pattern book project, it was great, because I'd be able to use the same skills to paste doll images on unusual backgrounds.
So I tried that today. And learned a few things. First off, what I was doing wasn't removing the background. Since I had black/gray images on a white backdrop going on top of a white canvas, it looked like I was. Nope. I pulled up my directions for ‘How to Put Doll Image on Internet Backdrop' that I'd cut/pasted from a chat board. Hmm. Clearly, the author has a more recent version of PaintShopPro than I have. We have 5.03 (read : ancient) and there was no such thing as an ‘erase background' tool anywhere on ours. Looks like that happened in 2004 - and we've had this one for so long, I can't remember when Hubby and I *didn't* have it.
I looked up PSP's home page. They're up to PSPX, and I can have it for the low, low upgrade price of $60. ! Not happening. Not this month. I toyed with downloading the free trial, but why try something I can't have ? I'll get spoiled by the new features and end up resentful when the freebie expires. So, more on a lark than anything else, I pulled up Google and typed ‘erase background in Paint Shop Pro 5'.
And got a full walk-through on how to create transparent GIFs ! That's what I was trying to do. As it turned out, I had the capability to make the background transparent with just three directions ! Reduce the colors to 256k, choose ‘Set the Transparency Value to the Current Background color' from the ‘Colors' menu, then place the image on the canvas using ‘Paste as Transparent Selection' in the Edit menu. I could even edit the image and see how the transparency would look ! Who needs a 'background erase' tool ? I have something just as good, if not better, already !
Spent the next three hours playing with it. I snagged images and posted numerous edits of dolls on ‘em. I ended up with one that looked like a long parade of cheesed-off bridesmaids walking single-file down a beach and off the frame. I'm not very good at it yet - there's still some tell-tale marks that make it look like a cut/paste, and I'm not sure how to improve it without taking too much off the image - but soon, there'll be some wild images for you on the site !
I would have one for you now, but remember how I said I'd been playing for hours ? Well, PSP glitched on me and locked up. I'm still waiting for it to finish shutting down. I'm giving it five more minutes before I do a full computer shut-down. It's starting to worry me.
Update : Had to shut the computer off the hard way, but most of my 'work' was saved - so I added an image of Fiona, a transparent .jpg on top of a background of stars. Busy backgrounds hide the more obvious lines until I can get more practice. As it is, I tweaked the saved Fiona image for 20 minutes ! It's a cut/paste of the same photo used on the doll review page - the one of her out of box, in her gown.
This coming from a woman who's all flustered about learning the new sound system. Next thing ya know, I'll be too scared to program a VCR, and I've long been the only one in the family who could ! Man, I'm getting timid in my old age...
