I've been trying to do an image that whose edges were burnt. This is what I have so far. I can't get rid of the ugly white line around my image. Any advice. Also I usually save my images to jpg. What are the best settings to save a web gif file?

Attached Link: http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/burn/burn.htm

What Paint program are you using??? It makes a difference. Here's a tutorial for Photoshop. In Paint Shop Pro (and probably Photoshop) there is a handy tool called "burn" that you can use on edges to give it more of the look you are looking forward. But having the shadows on the picture make it look as if the picture is in a frame that has been torn instead of the picture itself being burned (I'm referring to the top of the page.)

Attached Link: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Parc/6998/graphics/burnt.html

Here's one for Paint Shop Pro that may give you some ideas.

Attached Link: http://klicart.com/tuts/be.php

One more and I'm done.

If you haven't already, you might want to post the question to the forum for the Paint program you are using...just a thought.

I'm using photoshop. The reason I've been experimenting with this is because I'm stuck somewhere artistically and need to get out of the traditional square shape :)

Explore the wonderful world of masks. They can change that square into anything you want. :) Both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro can handle quite complex masking technqiues...and you can get some extra special effects with them. Including fog or smoke if you apply the right kind of mask to a top layer and then adjust the transparency. :) I'm not familiar with Photoshop so I leave the field to someone who knows what they are talking about.

Attached Link: http://www.graffici.com/filtres/filter_attack.htm

There is a wonderful photoshop/psp filter called "Filter Attacks" that does a nice burn look. This is one of it's frames used with a smudge on the edges.

Diane

Here's my second attempt using one of the tutorials dialyn gave me. I'm still having problems getting rid of that white line in photoshop whenever I save a gif.

Attached Link: http://www.atpm.com/4.04/page9.shtml

I don't see the white line but I guess that's because I don't view on a black ground. Here's a suggestion from another tutorial about getting rid of a border around the edge. Hope it helps. One suggestion I'd make is to use your tool to smudge and make your burn area less even in width. It looks just a little too regular to me.

This is what is looks like on a white background

I'm not sure how you are starting your graphic but one idea would be to start off with a black background as a default, then put your photograph in as a layer on top of it. As you work with the photograph, there won't be white pixels because you have that black layer behind it, which you can always delete or merge. Many people work on a background that is close to the color that they are going to set the graphic on so that the blending of the graphic with the background is more seamless. Does that make any sense? I could, of course, be wrong in my approach. I tend to be simple minded when it comes to this stuff.

I don't know if this make sense, but it maybe a bit technical. Here goes: .gif format is usually for low color images. 214 colors I believe. Your image, expecially near the edges are anti-alias, so it would show some level of grey and white, but no solid colors. When you save the image as a gif, most of the "anti-alias colors" will be approximated to the nears solid color in the 214 color spectrum. Some color will be white. If you want your image to be in the transparent gif format, I think you have to gave up the anti-alias look.

I took the liberty to redo your image and came up with this, notice the edges are very sharp.

To achieve it, this is the trick.

1. make your canvas slightly larger (by 10 pixels both horizontally and vertically)
2. Use the magic wand and select the transperent area
3. goto select>Modify>Expand enter 2 pixals
4. Ctrl x or hit the delete key to delete the selected outer edge
5. goto Image>Mode>RGB color
6. jump to ImageReady and save as transparent gif.

See result.
I hope that helped

JV

Your advice is better than mine.

I did exactly what you said and still got the white line around the image. Maybe I'm saving it wrong in image ready.

for a burnt edge...here is the recepie I use (In photoshop) 1)use rectangular marque too and make a selection within the image you wish the burnt edges on 2)switch to quick mask mode 3)Filters-Pixilate-Crystalize to get a jagged edge 4)switch back out of the mask mode 5)copy and past this cut out into a new layer 6)re-select your previous crystalized selection 7)contract your selection by 5 pixels (or however many you want) 8)feather your selection by 5 pixels (or however many) 9) select inverse 10) adjust your brightness/darkness to darken the edge to give it a burned look ...and maybe tweek this with your burn tool to vary the depth of the burn If you want to save it for the web as a gif, make sure your background background colour is the same as the page you want it on.

Here is a sample of my technique

Thanks for the advice everyone. I have the burn technique pretty well done but I'm obviously pretty dense about getting a transparent gif. If I could upload a psd file this wouldn't be a problem. So I've just decided to skip the whole burnt edges thing and just post the image in the gallery. It's there in case you still want to look at it.

As far as I know transparent GIFs allow only totally transparent or totally opaque pixels, so translucent pixels get driven to one extreme or the other. Your white edges are the result of that. Why do you need to use GIF? It isn't generally a good format for photographic or rendered images, so unless you need to put it on a website over a variable and unpredictable background you would do better to create a rectangular composite of your image over its intended background in PS and save that in a 24-bit format like PSD, Tif or (as a copy) JPG.

Attached Link: http://www.wolfhome.com/faq/transparency/

There are various tutorials on the web about how to get rid of the stray pixels around a transparent gif. RHaseltine is right, of course, but I think PapaBlueMartin was experimenting with the technique. It's fun to play sometimes.

I agree with RHaseltine. AFAIK, when you generate a gif with transparency, you have to specify the color from the palette that will be transparent. Any anti-aliasing, as someone mentioned is going to screw up the effect. PNG also supports transparency but it is not supported correctly in all browsers i.e. IE for Windows).

actually, you might try making it a png. it has 256 levels of translucency (not the on or off transparency of gif), and partial browser support

"Art images should be GIF or JPG format only. The full image should be between 100 x 100 and 4000 x 4000 pixels and be less than 512 KB in size. The thumbnail image (if supplied) should be between 50 x 50 and 200 x 200 pixels and be less than 15 kb in size." I wanted to use a psd but the gallery here doesn't support it. So if I want to use a non-square shape I have to use a gif file.