TinSoldier

Zoom in. For fine adjustments, you can also hold down the left mouse button and use the arrow keys to fine-adjust the placement.

I don't completely understand the question either, but I had some good luck today cutting out a picture. Using PDN 3.0 Alpha 3, I took the relevant picture through the following steps: 1. Copied to a new layer. 2. Used the new Outline effect. 3. On the outline layer I painted the areas (that didn't already turn white) white with a brush width of 4 or 6 that I wanted to eventually make transparent. 3. Adjusted the levels of the outline layer so the whites were whiter. 4. Multiple-selected the white areas with the magic wand. 5. Changed back to the original layer. 6. Pressed delete. This transparented my selected area. 7. Used the feather plugin to smooth the edges a bit. 8. I had to use the paintbrush a little around the edges to strengthen the lines. After that, I resized the picture to where I wanted it and saved it as PNG and GIF. The GIF version still doesn't look very good, but... Original (the last panel). PNG: GIF: Artwork is from the Goblins webcomic by Tarol Hunt. Used with permission.

Fnord. Since I haven't read the Illuminatus Trilogy, it is a word I first ran into back in the BBS days when someone else sigged it. It is just a geek word like grok that most self-respecting geeks should be aware of.

Using the magic wand, select the white area surrounding the image. You should get "marching ants" and the white area should turn slightly blue showing that it is selected. If the whole image is selected then you may need to turn down the tolerance.Press the delete key. Now you should see a checkerboard surrounding your image instead of a white background. The checkerboard is where your image will be transparent against other backgrounds.

It's not really automatic, but you have a few options: First, use the select tool and select the size and area you want. Then use "crop to selection" which is in the toolbar next to the clipboard or in the menu under Image. Then you can use Image->Resize to set to the size you want. Another option if the image you want is positioned properly you can go to Image->Canvas Size and set the size of your canvas. You set the anchor point depending on where the image you want is located. Does that help?

That's just the selection; did you then press delete? If it worked correctly then you should have a checkerboard pattern where the image is now transparent.

Thanks to Crazy Man Dan's gradient text technique, here is my test image: Pretty cool!

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks!

This is rapidly moving into tutorial thread territory...

That's pretty cool, Dan! I had downloaded that plugin but not used it yet. What do you mean by "unflatten" the mask image though?

So, for what purposes do you use Paint.NET? I mostly use it to modify other people's original art (with permission, usually). I crop and resize and transparent pictures of my favorite webcomic for use as avatars. I color B&W drawings that people I know have scanned. I've been using it a little bit with my photographs as well. What do you do?

I haven't tried everything yet, but I love these new effects!

Start with a new image. Delete the white background so the canvas is transparent. Draw something like a circle or whatever. Select all (or anything, really) and copy to clipboard. From the menu, edit -> paste into new image. I get my circle with a white background. If this is just me then I guess I will have to reinstall.

If I select a layer or some pixels and the background is transparent, when I paste into new image it gives a white background instead of transparent. 3.0 Alpha 3.

I could see layer-grouping being a useful advanced feature. Do any other programs have this?

I haven't tested it yet, but reading Boltbait's description it just blurs around the edges of an object--that is, where the object goes from colored-in pixels to a transparent background.Read his thread in the plugins forum.

This sounds cool-- I look forward to trying it out!

There really isn't explicitly an "output color" in this plugin. This is not merely a color replacement tool; maybe some of the coders out there can implement that if you make an official request. Yet, I see what you're aiming at and it sounds like a decent idea and something that is doable (if you choose "Set" for the hue action, it's a bit like an "output color"). I'll see if I can get something done that would involve creating the input range and output action based on the primary and secondary colors. We'll see... it won't be coming very soon that's for sure. Maybe I'll have time over Thanksgiving break. I understand what you are saying. The output is more of a shift rather than a different color.If even the input could be set to within a range of the Primary color, though, that would be cooler than being set to some default. I'm going to study coding in C# myself, but I'm too new to figure it out completely on my own.

Also, check for books at your local library. I've checked out books on Javascript, PHP, and C# that have been very helpful. My problem is that I've been studying programming languages and programming for years and I still haven't figured out how to read and understand large projects much less modify them or write my own.

Can you describe what a Magic Lasso is so the rest of us know?

I actually like picc84's better, if it was antialiased at the edges of the arc.Or maybe a rainbow/colored arc would be better... I might play with that later if no one else does.

3.0 has a pallette that saves colors.The way I thought about doing this in 2.72, though, is create a new layer for your pallette and put your swatches of color on there--squares, circles, whatever. Then just make it invisible most of the time until you need it. I haven't tried this, it was just something that occurred to me after I saw the feature in 3.0.

Yeah, I know.I did it at work (after backing up my 2.72). I'm considering doing it at home. I like some of the new features. But I'll leave my comments on that for another thread since this is for the Gradient feature... (which I really really like)!

I'd like to make a request for this plugin's UI: Would it be possible to have it set the input color within a default range of the current primary color and have the output color set to the current secondary color? Then the user could adjust from there. That way a user could just select the color he or she wants to change with the eyedropper.

Okay, I finally watched the video. I've been holding back on upgrading but the new gradient just looks too cool, along with a few of the other features I've read about.