Fade to background

[pipsgeorge]

I have a picture that I want to use as a very muted background [ in a web site]. There will be text over it, so the picture needs to be toned down [ is that the right phrase?] so it is background material, not interferring with reading text, but still there.

I've played and played, but I can't do it. Probably silly simple, but what you don't know can be a mountain to climb.

[pdnnoob]

I would lower the contrast of the image and adjust the brightness depending on the brightness of the text (ex: if text is light, make the background dark.)

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Press F4. Lower the opacity to wash it out.

You may need a background layer of white (or the same color as your website background) to appreciate the effect properly.

[pipsgeorge]

Changing the opacity from the F4 box is exactly the effect I am looking for. Two questions arise from that:

1) Where would I find information leading me to use F4? Is this an unpublished feature?

2) As I fade the picture out, I am getting a checkerboard effect. please foegive my beeing fussy, but can that checkerboard be dimished, or is that just inherant in fading?

Thank you all for your very kind assistance, I appreciate it!

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Glad I can help you out pipsgeorge. I should also like to welcome you to the forum!

These tips are published. There are even multiple ways to open the properties dialog. You've found one! (probably the most used)

The others are:

2. Double click on the layer.

3. Click this icon in the Layers Window :LayerProperties:

4. In the Layers menu (last item)

These are all listed in the online documentation (press F1 in Paint.NET).

Question #2

The checkerboard pattern is Paint.NET's way of denoting transparency. If you save the file in a format that supports transparency (e.g. PNG, but not JPG) then these areas will be transparent.

As you're using this image on a website, I recommend the PNG format, but also have a look at compressing it with the OptiPNG plugin to squash the file size down to a minimum.

[pipsgeorge]

You guys are the BEST!

I can fade, then save as both a JPG and PNG. both are excellent. The JPG takes up less than 10% of the file space, so I go with that,

But the real point is that I was given help FAST, and excellent. I am delighted to be aboard this forum.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

And we are glad to have you here. Enjoy!