I can't figure out how to delete text.

[Arbu]

I have some text on a jpeg which I've loaded into paint.net. The text shows up against a completely translucent background (grey and white checked). I want to delete the text. I've tried:

 

1. Selecting the eraser and running it over the text. This has no effect at all.

2. Selecting the background colour with the colour picker so that it appears as the primary colour then drawing a filled rectangle. This gives me some little white circles at the corners of the rectangle and a small square with arrows in. I don't know what I'm supposed to do at this stage. If I just press return the History window states that I have finished the rectangle. But no rectangle appears - the text is still there.

 

So how do I do this? I guess paint.net is very different in how it works to Microsoft Paint which I'm familiar with but it's very frustrating how difficult I'm finding it to do simple things.

 

Thanks.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Arbu

[LionsDragon]

The "circles and square with arrows" are for moving the rectangle.

 

Try this:

-Select the background with the magic wand.

-Press "Ctrl+I" on your keyboard. This will invert the selection (that is, select the text).

-Press "delete" on your keyboard or the scissors icon in Paint.Net

 

Try reading through the manual@Ego Eram Reputo wrote when you get a chance. It helps a lot with the transition.

[LoudSilence]

LionsDragon has a good way, but considering he has a completely transparent background, he should be able to just delete the whole thing (text being the whole thing)
CTRL+A on the text layer
Del or Delete on keyboard

[Arbu]

Sorry it is a png, not a jpeg. I don't really know what the difference is apart from in name.

 

I don't want to delete everything, just some of the text.

[LoudSilence]

6 minutes ago, Arbu said:

I don't want to delete everything, just some of the text.

Since the text is surrounded by transparency, when you delete "everything", the text IS everything since it is the only thing there, deleting everything will delete only the text since there is nothing else to delete, if it ISNT surrounded by transparency, go ahead and try LionsDragon's way

Edited October 19, 2020 by LoudSilence

[Arbu]

11 minutes ago, LoudSilence said:

Since the text is surrounded by transparency, when you delete "everything", the text IS everything since it is the only thing there, deleting everything will delete only the text since there is nothing else to delete, if it ISNT surrounded by transparency, go ahead and try LionsDragon's way

 

Yes it is surrounded by transparency. So I can select a rectangle around it and then press Delete and it goes. Hooray. I still don't understand why the other methods don't work though.

[MJW]

Are you sure the right layer is active? Usually when something like that happens to me, it's because the thing I want to delete isn't in the active layer.

[IHaveNoName]

Exactly ^.  If the text was in the same layer, even if over a transparent background the OP should have been able to erase or select and (under Edit) Erase Selection.

 

If that can't be done then the text must surely be in another layer.

 

Having the text in a separate layer or even layers is recommended anyway to make thing like erasing simpler.

[Arbu]

I understood about Ctrl+D. I did that to deselect anything and then tried erasing again and nothing happened.

 

I only have one layer. The background is the invisible colour. I want to replace the text with this. I can do it as described, by selecting a rectangle and pressing delete. Or, as I have now discovered, I can select a colour (not the invisible colour) and using the eraser. Other methods that I thought would have worked - using the eraser with the invisible colour selected and drawing a rectangle with the invisible colour selected have no effect.

 

 

[Djisves]

1 hour ago, welshblue said:

It won't work

It  would if you change the blending mode to Overwrite.

[LoudSilence]

6 hours ago, Arbu said:

Other methods that I thought would have worked - using the eraser with the invisible colour selected and drawing a rectangle with the invisible colour selected have no effect.

This is because you are basically erasing "nothing" from your picture. Your eraser has the power of how much transparency you have, and you dont have transparency.
It's similar like trying to subtract 0 from a number, it does nothing.