[Scribus] Q: Adding image with transparency

[Greg Hill]

This is an area where I have a little expertise, so I'll make a
suggestion. Before you save your image as a .png file in GIMP, use the
"select by color" tool with about a 20-25% threshold,select the white
area of your photo, invert the selection, then cut to the clipboard.
Next, select "edit > paste as new" and save the resulting image as
a .png (to preserve the transparency). You should then be able to import
directly into Scribus, using the image frame and "get image".The key is
to remove the white from your photo before saving it as a png.

The 20-25% tolerance I suggest above is only a guideline. You may have
to use more or less, depending on the photo.I don't normally "create" a
layer in Scribus to place the photo. It just sort of happens
automatically. 

I work at a newspaper, and frequently use the above procedure when
placing photos with transparency and it usually works. Good luck with
this. Let me know how you make out with it.

Regarding your second point, I don't believe you can "paste" directly
into Scribus. You must use the image frame and "get image" to place the
image. You are right when you say this is a better way to do it, since
you still have the original image to fall back on if things go wrong,
which they will from time to time. 
Greg


On Mon, 2007-05-03 at 17:31 -0700, D. R. Evans wrote:
> I am slowly (very slowly :-) ) making some progress at understanding Scribus.
> 
> Here is the issue that currently has me stumped.
> 
> 1. My lowest layer is coloured a uniform grey colour.
> 2. In GIMP, I have created an image with opacity 15%, and exported it to PNG.
> 3. Back in Scribus, I created a new layer (call it gimpimage)
> 4. On the gimpimage layer, I created an image frame of the right size,
> and imported the image.
> 
> But the result doesn't seem to show any of the background layer
> through the gimpimage layer (the background seems to be white rather
> than the grey colour of the lowest layer).
> 
> I've looked to see if I can find a setting to tell an entire layer not
> to be completely opaque, but there doesn't seem to be any such
> setting.
> 
> So I am very confused about the right way to layer a semi-transparent
> image on top of a background. Any advice/help (especially if couched
> in simple terms) would be most helpful.
> 
> Oh, and this may be a completely different issue, but if I Cut the
> GIMP image and tried to Paste it directly into Scribus, nothing seemed
> to happen. It seems like I had to actually save the GIMP image as a
> PNG image and then do a Get Picture in Scribus. Is that expected
> behaviour? I don't really mind (it's safer anyway to have a backup
> file of the image), but it just surprised me that I couldn't simply
> cut-and-paste the image from GIMP to Scribus.
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