art help? Transparency and Adobe Photoshop.

[timepiececlock]

I still haven't figured out how to take a black and white line drawing on white in Adobe Photoshop and convert the white to transparency, with the gray "transition" pixels in between turning into degrees of black opacity instead of degrees of gray.

If I try select color range or the magic wand, I always have that gray line in between. And if I "contract" the selection back to the pure black, I lose detail.

Likewise, I can't figure how to turn it totally black and white without having the black get all thick and fuzzy, losing the finer lines.

I have this nice line art that I would love to make into a transparent layer, but the white background is killing me and I could do with advice.


Sample:

Comments

[vrya.livejournal.com]

Right click on the layer with the art on it and select "blending options". In the "blend if" section, drag the triangle on the right of the "this layer" bar (under the white part of the bar) to the left. When the white part dissappears, zoom in, hold down the alt button, and you can now click and drag on the two parts of the triangle slider to fine-tune how the gray fades out.

Hope that helps!

p.s.

[vrya.livejournal.com]

depending on what you're trying to do, just setting the line art layer to multiply may be the easiest thing to do. See this tutorial.

Re: p.s.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Thank you! All of this has been useful, and that tutorial especially so. It turns out that the multiply thing is the easiest for what I want to do, but I didn't even know about the "blend if" thing so I'll be experimenting with that later I'm sure.

You've been a huge help. Thanks again.