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This is probably in the wrong section but I didn't know where else to post!
This is one for the IT specialists at Paizo or someone who really knows their Publisher and Adobe stuff. Here goes...I attempted to copy and paste, for my own use, the rune symbol for Varisia on pg 194 of The Inner Sea World Guide and then pasted it onto a copied item card pdf...and got a black background, so then as a 'test run' i copied and pasted mayor kendra from the next page and got a black background...anyone know why this happens?
Don't get me wrong - the item cards and npc portraits etc are a great idea, it's just that sometimes we need to make our own player handouts and the black background will 'totally cane' the black ink, as we say in my neck of the woods :D
Could you throw it into GIMP or another program and just remove the black background making it transparent?
If you are using Microsoft Publisher. Publisher has a built in way of selecting transparency from an image.
Chief Technical Officer
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This is probably in the wrong section but I didn't know where else to post!
This is one for the IT specialists at Paizo or someone who really knows their Publisher and Adobe stuff. Here goes...I attempted to copy and paste, for my own use, the rune symbol for Varisia on pg 194 of The Inner Sea World Guide and then pasted it onto a copied item card pdf...and got a black background, so then as a 'test run' i copied and pasted mayor kendra from the next page and got a black background...anyone know why this happens?
Don't get me wrong - the item cards and npc portraits etc are a great idea, it's just that sometimes we need to make our own player handouts and the black background will 'totally cane' the black ink, as we say in my neck of the woods :D
See this post for an explanation and suggestions.
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sometimes we need to make our own player handouts
Something else you can do, is using MS Paint, use the "select tool", and copy the image needed with that, then paste the image into MS Paint. You'll wind up getting some of the text that was around some of the images, but that is nowhere near as troublesome to clean up as an all black background...
I use this method to make handouts for the players in both of my campaigns. One is RotRL, and the other is CotCT, and it works very well...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
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I'll try the MS Paint method for starters....and also I pretty much remember an older version of Adobe, 6 or 7, where you could extract all the images from a pdf
In case you're not sure how to get the image to MS Paint, use "ALT+Print Screen" then paste into MS Paint, then you can use the select tool to select the area you wish to use for a player handout...
As for which older versions of Adobe Reader that allowed a clean copy/paste, I believe it was up to version 8 that allowed this, but I'm not 100% sure...
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Chief Technical Officer
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I'll try the MS Paint method for starters....and also I pretty much remember an older version of Adobe, 6 or 7, where you could extract all the images from a pdfIn case you're not sure how to get the image to MS Paint, use "ALT+Print Screen" then paste into MS Paint, then you can use the select tool to select the area you wish to use for a player handout...
As for which older versions of Adobe Reader that allowed a clean copy/paste, I believe it was up to version 8 that allowed this, but I'm not 100% sure...
Adobe removed image extraction in Reader 9, but restored it in Reader X.
Even using Adobe Reader X, if you copy an image from a PDF and paste it right into a new file in Photoshop, the transparent areas are still completely black. There is no alpha channel available to select, nor is there any sort of a layer mask that I can see (at least not in CS3 anyway).
Snagging or restoring that transparency info seems to be the elusive holy grail of this whole process...
Could it be that we need to have a certain color profile available?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I'm not sure if the Varisia Rune is in there, but the Community Use Runes Package is likely going to have better quality images that are easier to work with.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Even using Adobe Reader X, if you copy an image from a PDF and paste it right into a new file in Photoshop, the transparent areas are still completely black. There is no alpha channel available to select, nor is there any sort of a layer mask that I can see (at least not in CS3 anyway).
Snagging or restoring that transparency info seems to be the elusive holy grail of this whole process...
Could it be that we need to have a certain color profile available?
I'm not sure what to tell you. I use Reader X on a Mac (though I don't personally use Photoshop), and if I copy and image and paste it into an alpha-channel aware app, I get an alpha channel.
Actually, if I just select an image from Reader and just drag it to my Desktop, I get a TIFF with an alpha channel.
As a workaround, you might also consider a screenshot of the image that you want. I'm certain Windows has a tool built in, but I never use it, so I don't know what it is. On a Mac, there's Cmd-Shift-4 to screenshot a selectable area.
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Even using Adobe Reader X, if you copy an image from a PDF and paste it right into a new file in Photoshop, the transparent areas are still completely black. There is no alpha channel available to select, nor is there any sort of a layer mask that I can see (at least not in CS3 anyway).
Snagging or restoring that transparency info seems to be the elusive holy grail of this whole process...
Could it be that we need to have a certain color profile available?
I'm not sure what to tell you. I use Reader X on a Mac (though I don't personally use Photoshop), and if I copy and image and paste it into an alpha-channel aware app, I get an alpha channel.
Actually, if I just select an image from Reader and just drag it to my Desktop, I get a TIFF with an alpha channel.
You can also copy from Reader X and then "New From Clip Board" with Preview and save it as a PNG with alpha.
Actually, if I just select an image from Reader and just drag it to my Desktop, I get a TIFF with an alpha channel.
Evidently Adobe must not have felt the need to implement this in the Windows version of Adobe Reader. I'm running Win7 and when I try to drag an image out of Adobe Reader X, I get a circle with a line through it. (Even though that same trick would work with Chrome or a host of other apps.)
At least now I know that it's *supposed* to be simple. Thanks for the reply, Vic.
I'm certain Windows has a tool built in, but I never use it, so I don't know what it is.
It's PrintScreen (for all monitors) or Alt+PrintScreen (for the currently focused app). In in Win 7 you can also just use the clipping tool. However, that's still requires manual editing... avoiding that is kind of the point.
You can also copy from Reader X and then "New From Clip Board" with Preview and save it as a PNG with alpha.
What do you mean "New From Clip Board with Preview"? I don't see that as a named option in either Reader X or Photoshop.
I wonder if maybe the issue is that my copy of Photoshop is too old... What OS and what version of Photoshop are you using?
I'm running the Windows version of CS3. When I read the earlier replies, I right-clicked the graphic and choose Copy in Reader X, then went into Photoshop and selected File-> New and then pasted the contents of the clipboard into the resulting file. This resulted in the same black area with only the RGB, Red, Green, and Blue channels present.
Thanks for the replies all, there's got to be some solution to this for the PC crowd...
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What do you mean "New From Clip Board with Preview"? I don't see that as a named option in either Reader X or Photoshop.
Sorry, Preview, is the standard PDF/Image viewer that is built into OS/X, so no help for windows folks.
On Windows, Acrobat X allows you to highlight and copy and image with ctrl-C. I know when I paste that into mspaint or paint.net you don't get the Alpha preserved. WHich is what we want here. I don't have photoshop for any plateform, but I used to, and I recall either under the edit, or file menu there is an option to create a new image from the clip board, or it may create a new canvas that is the dimensions of the clipboard. After which you can try pasting and seeing if the transparency is preserved.
Sorry, Preview, is the standard PDF/Image viewer that is built into OS/X, so no help for windows folks.
Well now I don't feel so bad for not knowing what you were talking about at least. ;)
On Windows, Acrobat X allows you to highlight and copy and image with ctrl-C. I know when I paste that into mspaint or paint.net you don't get the Alpha preserved. WHich is what we want here. I don't have photoshop for any plateform, but I used to, and I recall either under the edit, or file menu there is an option to create a new image from the clip board, or it may create a new canvas that is the dimensions of the clipboard. After which you can try pasting and seeing if the transparency is preserved.
Your recollection is correct on both counts. Photoshop automatically sizes the canvas of the new document to whatever graphics is in the clipboard. However, the transparency info doesn't survive the copypasta process (at least not with CS3) because that's exactly what I've been trying.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's the copy mechanism itself that is at fault...
Foreground was set to black and background to white. I changed both to white just now but there was no change. I also tried setting the new file background options to white, background color, and lastly transparent, all with no change. It was a good thought though.
I suppose at this point maybe I should find myself a large trout and slap some of the people on Adobe's forums around a bit to see if they have any ideas. Paizo isn't the only company that uses transparency in their PDFs and I'm sure I'm not the first Windows user to try this. (All evidence here to the contrary. ;)
Alright, I've created a question thread on Abode's forums to see if that produces any results. Just so I can find it again, here is the link:
Alpha/Transparency lost when copying images from PDF in Adobe Reader X (Windows)
Thanks again to everyone here for your willingness to help, it's appreciated!
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Sorry, Preview, is the standard PDF/Image viewer that is built into OS/X, so no help for windows folks.Well now I don't feel so bad for not knowing what you were talking about at least. ;)
On Windows, Acrobat X allows you to highlight and copy and image with ctrl-C. I know when I paste that into mspaint or paint.net you don't get the Alpha preserved. WHich is what we want here. I don't have photoshop for any plateform, but I used to, and I recall either under the edit, or file menu there is an option to create a new image from the clip board, or it may create a new canvas that is the dimensions of the clipboard. After which you can try pasting and seeing if the transparency is preserved.Your recollection is correct on both counts. Photoshop automatically sizes the canvas of the new document to whatever graphics is in the clipboard. However, the transparency info doesn't survive the copypasta process (at least not with CS3) because that's exactly what I've been trying.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's the copy mechanism itself that is at fault...
Is there an option to paste as new layer?
Pasting automatically creates a new layer.
One option for Windows users, though it's a lot of initial setup, is to use VirtualBox to run OSX inside your Windows. Then you can have them share a network folder.
Also, the 'shared clipboard' feature which allows you to copy in OSX and paste directly into Windows may keep the alpha information, which would fix the problem entirely. I haven't tried this, however, the network folder will work well enough.
Of course you will also need a copy of OSX to install...
Ah thread necromancy.
I've spent a lot of time doing this because I create lots of advanced/templated/etc. creatures and want to use the original artwork in my personal bestiary. I don't have a Mac, so it's a lot of work. I've posted this elsewhere, but I'll post it here too.
I do one of the following. Each has quality/time tradeoffs, which I use based on what the purpose is.
1. Do a Google image search for the image. Some artists post their art, and Paizo blogs some of the art. Maybe you'll get lucky.
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2a. Copy the image from Acrobat and paste it into MSPaint. You'll have a black background. Use the bucket/fill tool to fill the background. The quality of this varies greatly; Paizo doesn't create all their images the same way - some have crisp edges and others have a gradient surrounding them, in which case this looks terrible. There will often be little blobs you have to fill inside the image.
2b. Clean it up further using the eraser tool in MSPaint. Using rect select and CTRL-X to cut big sections out saves time.
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3a. Copy the image from Acrobat and paste it into Gimp, and then use Gimp's fill tool to fill the background. On this one you can adjust the threshold, so you might get a better fill effect.
3b. (similar to 3a) Clean it up further with paint, etc.
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4. For images that are just too hosed to clean up with either 2 or 3, I zoom into Acrobat as much as I can and then take a screenshot. At least that way the background is clear and I just have to cut out the surrounding cruft.
From what I understand, people with Macs have it easy; the Mac version of Adobe and the Mac image tools mean you don't really have to deal with that cruddy border.
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I am a Window user.
I am using a freeware program called Irfanview to mange most of my images. Nice little toy.
Till half a hour ago I had the same problem, I tried a few tricks but was unable to clear the background. Then instead of saving as a JPG I tried saving the image as a GIF. doing that I get the option to set the transparency value to 0.
That will remove the background black. It is not a perfect solution as it generate some white doth in the main image, apparently setting some of the black on the main image to transparent, but it work.
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I'm a windows user working with acrobat and photoshop...I just tried doing a save as on the image and saving it as a TIF. It came out with a white background instead of the black. Then convert to jpeg or png with photoshop or whatever. I'd prefer a cutout image, but at least it looks better than the black.
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Also, if you are using Photoshop (I'm on CS4) you can use the Blend If function...double click on your layer (not a background layer), and it will bring up a Layer Style window. At the bottom is a Blend If option - keep it on gray and then move the sliders from black to white...you can also alt click the sliders to split them. The end result being that you can remove true black or true white from the image. Depending on the image, you should be able to have a cut-out which you can then save as a .png, which looks great on MapTools. Of course, if you are trying to cutout a shadow, it won't work so good, since there will be a lot of black. But most of the characters will look pretty good.
This is also handy if you have scanned text from a newspaper or something and just want to extract the letters. Or if you want to scan an old handwritten paper. Blend If will remove the whitish background and leave the dark letters.