Clipping Paths

[Sfen66]

Hello, I am using PP10 and I wouild like to drop an irregular shaped photo into Draw. I want to just import the image shape (and not a rectangle) so that you can see the coloured page background right up to the edge of the irregular shaped image.

I have done the following but it has not worked - I just get a rectangle:
1. Draw a freehand mask
2. Openned the path docker
3. Click on the 'Mask to Path' button
4. Set path as clipping path
5. Deleted all other paths except clipping path
6. Export to EPS format
7. Open Draw
8. Import EPS file

I have looked at the Help menu but that didn't answer my question. Any ideas where I am going wrong would be appreciated.

Thanks, Sfen66

 

[javabearSTL]

no matter what you do, you will always, technically, get a rectangle because all bitmaps have a rectangular bounding box. There are numerous ways of doing what you want to do, and the way you've described is really the LOOOOOOOOONG way around of doing it.

There's no need for you to go to an EPS - keep it in the Photopaint format so it's a non-lossy bitmap. There's two ways you could do this based off of your workflow above. After you've created your mask, just hit ctrl-uparrow - this will create a new object from the mask. You could then copy/paste that object into Draw or you could save the file and then just import it into Draw, ungroup the objects and delete everything you don't need except that one item...

Or if you want a softer edge to the object, create a very rough mask around what you want, create a new object from this mask, then apply a clipmask to this object based upon the object's transparency. Then in the Object Docker, select the ClipMask and using a soft brush, you can paint in black and erase what you don't need - if you accidentally erase too much, using white as a base color will bring it all back.

I have a tutorial I did more for colorizing b/w photos, but I show how I make lots of little objects with this process that might illustrate what I mean to you more clearly.

http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/index.php?m=show&id=43

You could then import these CPT files into Draw (and ungroup them if need be and delete what's not needed) and avoid the whole EPS route - you're really making things more difficult than they need to be.