Making Transparent Background Text for Beta 5

[Lin Evans]

Hi Folks,

It just occurred to me that there may be a number of people in the same boat with me when it comes to making really nice text to use with the Animation process of P2E Beta 5.

I didn't understand PNG transparency until Igor explained it to me. I had been using IrfanView and saving my jpgs as transparent PNG files by clicking on a background color and saving as PNG. It didn't work - LOL.

It's really simple to do with PhotoShop or the very excellent and very reasonable Pix Builder (how Igor does it). Maybe everyone already understands this but I was using transparent GIF's which are not "nearly" as nice and do not work as well as the PNG approach.

So a very simple explanation here on a step by step approach. I'm going to use PhotoShop because I'm most familiar with it:

1. Open PhotoShop and click on File, New.

2. From the popup name your file and enter a size. You don't need lots of height unless you will have multiple lines of text. For a single line maybe start with 800 pixels wide by 200 pixels tall. Since the background will be invisible, you will not see the edges of the rectangle containing the text even when you scroll it clear across or up and down and off the screen area so don't waste a lot of unnecessary file height.

3. Make sure the "Background Content" says "transparent"

4. Click on O.K. and choose the text tool and set the upper or "foreground" color to your choice.

5. Choose a font and font size. A decent size is nice like 48 points - you can zoom in or out when you place it over your image and set the Animation for it so as long as what you have to say will fit in the parameters of the rectangle you have chosen make it a decent size.

6. When you have finished center the text on the rectangle and save the file as a PNG.

That's all there is to it! I wish i had known how truly easy it was - duhhh

Thanks Igor - this has greatly simplified my slideshow production!!

One last caution: DO NOT FLATTEN the file - just save it with the checkerboard pattern which signifies a transparency. When you place the file over your image you won't see the background at all and everything will look super folks!!

I just read Ken's post about doing this with Paint Shop Pro (PSP) and thought I would include a suggestion for those who want to dress up their PNG a bit with PhotoShop as well.

Once you have the text created, you can add some "punch" in the following way:

Open the Layers window and click down on the bottom left (little button icon) called "Add a Layer Style". Next click on Drop Shadow and make the opacity, distance, etc., so it looks to suit (experiment a bit) then try clicking a check beside "Set Outer Glow" and "Bevel and Emboss" then save as a PNG.

This really dresses up the text and gives it a "finished" look.

Best regards,

Lin

[ADB]

Thanx Lin

Works a treat!!

By the way for what its worth I followed with interest your battle with Jason over on DP Review and agree totally that PSG has not to date even come close to matching the smoothness of pans and zooms that this PTE beta 5.0 is producing.

[Ronniebootwest]

Why oh! why do people insist on using abbreviations when posting on the forum? For example, we all know that 'PTE' means Pictures to Exe but not everyone will readily appreciate that PSG refers to 'Pro Show Gold'.

Beginners, who frequent this forum might appreciate the full description to help them understand.

[nickles]

Hello Everyone:

For the benefit of those that might use Paint Shop Pro.

Create your text on a colored background, of your choosing, with the Text selection tool. Then copy the selection to the clipboard. Follow this up with a "paste as new image". You've now got colored text with a transparent background. Using "3D effects", you can then add a drop shadow. Save your result as a .png file. You are now ready to put into your slideshow.

Make sure you create your text of a reasonable size for use in your show...but you can adjust the text with PTE's zoom capability.

ken

[alrobin]

Thanks, Lin,

I used a transparent GIF (Ronnie, this stands for "Graphics Interchange Format" ) for the introduction to the sample pan of Brasov, Romania, that I posted on my website. (See HERE )

However, I was not very satisfied with the results, so your comments about "PNG" ("Portable Network Graphics") are much appreciated.

[Lin Evans]

Thanx Lin

Works a treat!!

By the way for what its worth I followed with interest your battle with Jason over on DP Review and agree totally that PSG has not to date even come close to matching the smoothness of pans and zooms that this PTE beta 5.0 is producing.

Yes, Jason has always been a bit of a "Fan Boy" when it comes to ProShow Gold (PSG). It's difficult to mention PicturesToExe (P2E/PTE/PXE) there without expecting an argument in favor of ProShow Gold or Producer from him. The other person (PhotoBob) was just uninformed, unreasonable and argumentative for whatever reason. I finally gave up trying to explain to him that PSG can neither render the high resolution images which P2E Beta 5 can nor can it produce multiple slides on the same screen each with independent animation and transparency.

I've been a user of both PSG and P2E since their inception as beta products and PSG has always been a fine product but in general fraught with "bugs" which when "fixed" are replaced with yet more "bugs". Jerky movement, especially in pans, has been an issue with PSG as well as with Producer. We are fortunate to have seven different systems with different video cards, memory, processors, etc., to test the output of both P2E, PSG and Producer. The smoothness of pans, zooms, rotates, and scrolls with P2E 5.0 beta far exceeds anything we have ever seen with ANY other slideshow product.

It's difficult to reason with blind brand loyalty and I'm afraid that's the issue with some at DP Review. A year or so ago PhotoDex, the authors and distributors of ProShow, ProShow Gold and ProShow Producer had a professional wedding photographer who used to appear in their booth at trade shows to demonstrate his slideshows made with PSG and Producer. He was quite talented and thoroughly understood the strengths and weaknesses of PSG and Producer and would always build his shows with very fancy effects playing to the strengths and avoiding at all costs doing things which revealed any weakness. His demonstrations sold lots of product for PhotoDex - nothing wrong with that.

PSG and Producer are very powerful products, but lack the flexibility of low level functions which are and have always been possible with PicturesToExe. My research over the years has shown that more professional photographers outside the wedding photographer venue choose P2E for their presentations. For sales, etc., being able to display the file name along with the image (something PSG couldn't do until recently), have a manual show where one could go forward, backward, etc., (something PSG still can't do) and print from a slide (another thing neither PSG nor Producer can do), run executable code from within the slideshow (yet another which neither PhotoDex product can do), have a small "footprint" (tight code), etc., are all strengths of P2E which are unmatched with PSG and Producer.

Being able to burn a DVD from within the program, having the ability to scroll text, the Ken Burns Effects and a built-in means of displaying one's show over the web were the primary advantages of the competition until now. The new Beta 5 PicturesToExe approach to text handling is far more powerful than what can be done with PSG. It's not nearly as "easy" to get a show on the web from a P2E output but it's possible by using Flash conversion of a P2E AVI output. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses, but my personal preference is PicturesToExecute because in the final analysis, as a photographer image quality is the most important thing to me. PicturesToExe wins in this department big time!!

Best regards,

Lin

[alrobin]

Lin,

Well said!

And perhaps the greatest asset with respect to PTE is having a keen producer who is always watching the Forum and responds promptly to our requests/complaints. I couldn't believe my eyes yesterday when I received a positive response from Igor 32 minutes after my suggestion about expanding the range of the technical data for panning large images! This is unheard of in the software industry!!

[Lin Evans]

Lin,

Well said!

And perhaps the greatest asset with respect to PTE is having a keen producer who is always watching the Forum and responds promptly to our requests/complaints. I couldn't believe my eyes yesterday when I received a positive response from Igor 32 minutes after my suggestion about expanding the range of the technical data for panning large images! This is unheard of in the software industry!!

Absolutely! The degree of personal involvement and commitment by Igor is unparalleled in the slideshow software industry. That's a powerful advantage for PicturesToExe and an overwhelming reason why potential customers need to be informed about this very real and palpable advantage!

Best regards,

Lin

[LumenLux]

Thanks Lin and Al, your observations are right on. Both on product and on Igor. Igor is not only smart but also wise. Admittedly, brand loyalty to PTE is very easy for me as my needs have never been able to run ahead of Igor. Thank you again, Igor.

[JohnFeg]

This is unheard of in the software industry!!

[mellow]

" ... gif not "nearly" as nice and do not work as well as the PNG approach ..."

... that's because .gif format can only show 256 colours and the .png format shows millions of colours ... only use the .gif format for logos or objects with few colours in them ...

[Lin Evans]

Hello Everyone:

For the benefit of those that might use Paint Shop Pro.

Create your text on a colored background, of your choosing, with the Text selection tool. Then copy the selection to the clipboard. Follow this up with a "paste as new image". You've now got colored text with a transparent background. Using "3D effects", you can then add a drop shadow. Save your result as a .png file. You are now ready to put into your slideshow.

Make sure you create your text of a reasonable size for use in your show...but you can adjust the text with PTE's zoom capability.

ken

Thanks Ken - excellent way to do this with PSP for sure - I'll go back and explain the drop shadow, etc. with PhotoShop which does indeed add to the finished appearance.

Best regards,

Lin