Erasing background no longer defaults to transparent?

[xxSomeGuyxx]

Hi, potentially very silly question.

 

I will sometimes clip parts from other PNG/JPG images I find on Google to a transparent background to paste into other images with other backgrounds. After the part of the image is surrounded by nothing but transparency, I'll copy-paste that part into a new layer of a different image.

 

I noticed recently (possibly due to a recent Paint.net update?) that using Magic Wand + Delete no longer defaults to a transparent background.

It now weirdly defaults to a dark, solid color that is not transparent. so when I try to Magic Wand + Delete all the background around it, it instead surrounds it with a dark color that is not transparent.

 

If I try to copy the image, it copies the dark background along with it. Re-saving images as 32-bit PNG files does not seem to fix this issue. Ticking the Interlaced box on or off before saving as a PNG doesn't seem to make a difference--I can't get the deleted background to be transparent. It's always opaque.

 

Is there an obvious setting I'm missing to get Paint.net to default back to "delete background = transparent"?

 

Attached an image to show what I see after I Magic Wand + Delete part of the image background. Thank you for any help.

 

 

[Rick Brewster]

It sounds like you're pressing Backspace (Fill Selection), not Delete (Erase Selection). Or you have a keyboard that is labeled wrong, or you recently installed or configured an app that swaps them. It's filling with black because that's what you have the primary color set to in the Colors window (black is the default primary color).

 

A quick way to test this: instead of pressing "Delete", use the Edit -> Erase Selection menu command. It will erase the selection, it won't fill it with black.

 

Mac keyboards, for instance, call it "Delete" instead of Backspace. So it's not unheard of for a keyboard to use reversed terminology.

 

 

[Pixey]

On 11/28/2023 at 12:38 AM, xxSomeGuyxx said:

I noticed recently (possibly due to a recent Paint.net update?) that using Magic Wand + Delete no longer defaults to a transparent background.

 

 

Coincidentally, I had a strange thing happen a week or so ago.  It has not occurred again though, thank goodness.

 

I noticed that, when saving to .png the background was black:

 

But when I opened the .png into PDN, the background was transparent 

 

 

It could have been a fluky thing, as it's no longer happening 🙏 and remains a mystery to me.

 

However, I did notice on one of them, there had been a small remnant of another color in the nether regions, which could have been the culprit.

 

 

[Tactilis]

57 minutes ago, Pixey said:

It could have been a fluky thing

Looks like a problem of File Explorer not generating or displaying the thumbnails correctly.

Had you right-clicked in Explorer and rotated the file (and then back again) the thumbnail would have been regenerated and the problem likely would have gone. I've had to resort to this a few times to solve similar problems of a thumbnail not correctly showing the file content.

 

[Red ochre]

Hi @Pixey and @Tactilis

 

Regarding thumbnails:

This has been happening for ages, for me... with '.png' and sometimes with '.webp'. Pretty sure it's a Windows bug as it is Windows explorer displaying the thumbnails.
It will often change the colour of transparency in the thumbnail depending on the size of the thumbnail too. Often changing its mind about whether to use black or white whilst other thumbnails in a folder are loading!
Very annoying as a folder displaying black objects against a black (transparent) background is utterly pointless!☹️

The actual colour values of the pixels seem irrelevant. BGRA = 255,255,255,0 or BGRA = 0,0,0,0 makes no difference, I think it depends on the weather!🤪

 

I've just tested a folder full of images, all created in the same way and all are 'webp' and all have backgrounds BGRA = 255,255,255,0.
Displaying as 'Medium-sized' icons half are diplayed with a black background and half with white?
'Large' and 'Extra large' display all with white backgrounds (correct) and 'Small' just doesn't bother trying to display the image thumbnail at all!
Windows 10 just doesn't like .webp!
 
Different ways of saving does seem to make a difference.
In Pdn an image saved as .png will often display A = 0 as black but the same image saved using the optipng plugin displays A = 0 as white.

 

I know this doesn't help solve the problem but sometimes a good rant helps!😄

[Pixey]

2 hours ago, Tactilis said:

had to resort to this a few times to solve similar problems of a thumbnail not correctly showing the file content.

 

Very interesting @Tactilis and thanks for the tip  

 

2 hours ago, Red ochre said:

I think it depends on the weather!🤪

 

That must be it 😁

 

 

On 11/28/2023 at 12:38 AM, xxSomeGuyxx said:

Attached an image to show what I see after I Magic Wand + Delete part of the image background.

 

Is it just possible that you had a black background open on one of the layers?