I have a graphical question. I hope you don't mind.

[RetroJay]

Hi yall.

I wasn't sure where to post this.
This seemed like a good place as I am not sure if it is graphical or scripting.

First of all I wish to tell you that I am creating my graphics and such with 'Paintshop Pro 9' (which seems to do everything I require).
I have drawn a 'Magnifying Glass' as a mouse cursor and all is well.
However I would love to tint the lense of the Magnifying glass a light blue so as you could still see the background through it slightly when the cursor moves
over it.
I don't know if anyone here has ever seen the 'Nancy drew' games but this is the effect that I dessire.

Many thanks.
RetroJay.

 

[Trent R]

Google for tutorials on alpha channels in Paint Shop Pro (though Photoshop tuts will be 90% similar)


~Trent

[RetroJay]

Hi Trent R.

Thankyou.
I thought that it maybe something to do with this thing called 'Alpha channels' but wasn't sure.
I haven't a clue how to use them though so I will do what you have suggested.

Thanks again.
RetroJay.

[Trent R]

Don't know if you already found something, but here is a page showing the very basics of alpha channel usage.


~Trent

[monkey0506]

We appear to have a moderator war going on.

But anyway, just to sum up what it is for you RetroJay, an alpha channel is simply a special type of layer that is used as a sort of transparency map. Alpha channels are represented in grayscale. Anything which is solid white (in the alpha channel) will appear in the image at 0% transparency (100% opacity). Anything which is solid black will inversely appear at 100% transparency (0% opacity). Anything in-between will be interpreted as partial transparency, based on how light or dark the shade of gray (again, in the alpha channel) is.

This alpha channel layer doesn't actually affect the color information of the image, only the transparency. Every pixel in the end-image will have its overall transparency level determined by the same pixel in the alpha channel.

Anytime you may have seen an image which has a transparent background, you've experienced an alpha channel at work. The areas which are completely transparent have been drawn completely black in the alpha channel for the image. Anything which appears completely solid has been drawn as white. And any partially transparent pixels are the result of some shade of gray in the alpha channel.

Most major "photo editing" software programs support the use of alpha channels. The biggest challenge could possibly just be knowing how to implement them. For example, in Photoshop you can add a "layer mask" which is really just adding an alpha channel to the image. You can then paint onto it just like you would a normal layer, and you will see the results as I've explained above.

I've never used PSP but from what I understand it works similarly in this respect.

Hopefully that clears up some things for you.

[..]

Hey,

When you export your image in the 'PNG' format, it'll maintain the alpha transparency.