Vinheta with transparent borders

[armandontg]

Please, how can I aply the effect called vinheta to an imported bitmap image (.bmp) so the image borders become transparent and without transform the image itself in bitmap. I´m using CorelDraw10 now but in Corel9 sometimes I get the expected result and sometimes don´t (I don´t know how nor why).

 

[attrofy]

I am assuming you are talking about Vignette. I don't quite understand the question, but I ssume that when you apply this effect to your bitmap, you are getting too much of the area vignetted? If this is correct, make you image larger than it needs to be. Sometimes, if this is not easily accomplished from Paint or some other program, you can draw an empty box around the outside of your bitmap, make sure you right click the X above the color pallete to make your border transparent, then select the two objects (the box and the bitmap) and group them together (you may have to send the box to the back - right click on the box Order-> to back or SHIFT + PageDown). Then go to Bitmap-> Convert to Bitmap. Now you have a larger bitmap with a clear background to adjust the size of your vignette.

If this isn't what you are looking for, then maybe you need to put the image into paint, apply a vignette there of some absurd color (bright yellow or purple), then either mask out the color with a color mask, and save as a gif or jpeg with transparent background of the absurd color.

Let me know if this is what you mean.

Russell

 

[armandontg]

Dear Russell,

At first, thanks for your response.
Maybe I am not been able to expose my troubles.

Yes, it is about vignette I am talking about.
In Corel 9, I imported a video still saved as .bmp. I selected it and, without transform the image in bitmap because of the resultant quality loss, I aply the vignette effect to it and, sometimes (not always, I don´t know why), I get a "vignetted" image, oval, round ou square, with transparent borders (not black nor white). Now, in Corel10 I just get the transparente borders transforming the image in bitmap first, but with quality loss. Can you help me?

 

[attrofy]

Let me see if I understand correctly. You are trying to create a movie with a colored vignette (either white or black), kind of as a frame for your video?

What format is the video you are importing? You say it is a .BMP? I am not aware of .bmp files being able to contain video or transparencies. I assume that you are creating a movie by importing a series of still .bmp files, and Corel is saving them as .avi - does this sound correct?

Assuming the above is true, one thing to keep in mind with movies is that if you don't "combine" an image with the background for a particular frame, it will "float" above all the frames. So if you have an image or mask, and are applying a vignette to a portion of that image, then not combining that image with the background frame, you will loose you transformations when going to the next frame. This could explain why some of your vignettes are missing or different colors. Case in point, if you touch up a photo, or clone a small section somewhere else, and don't combine it with the backround, you will see that same transformation in all frames. This is ok if the transformation is out of place, you will catch your mistake. However, if your transformation applies to all the frames, then you will never know that only one of the frames has been transformed, leaving the others in their original, un-transformed condition. This is probably what is happenening with your vignette. It is proably floating on a potion of an image on the first frame, and is being caried through all of your frames. Combine your first image with the background and see if the second frame is mising the vignette. This should make my explanation a little clearer. You can soon start to see the frames that have been combined, and the ones that haven't.

So the best thing I have found is to set all of your pictures and transformations in the appropriate frames first. Go through and make all of your modifications to each frame. When you can go through the movie, and see the images and transformations as you want them, then make the last step to apply you vignettes, after each of the images are combined with the backgrounds.

As for image/quality loss, it probably occurs when saving your image as a .gif (I assume for web display). Check out thread240-323232 as it goes into some detail about 8 bit images. Just to let you know, I found the best results are using uniforme pallete with ordered dithering (for photos). THe preview may look a little grainy, but the final output is quite acceptable (depending on video size). It is never as sharp as the originals, but color stays rendered properly, and you don't get a lot of "jaggies", just an exceptable bit of loss of resolution (assuming your resolution is high enough to begin with).

HTH,
Russell