Taking a greyscale photo – turning it into one color + transparent?

MC
Posted By
Michael_Campion
Jul 30, 2004
Views
597
Replies
6
Status
Closed
Hi All,
I silk screened a shirt this weekend and what they did was print a white design on a blue shirt. The design was all letters except for one area which was a small photo of which they made a "half tone". What I am looking to do is take my design and turn it into a logo that looks exactly like the shirt. I selected the document and made the background blue and the letters white but I am having trouble taking the photo (greyscale) and making it just ONE COLOR. I want what is normally BLACK in the photo to be TRANSPARENT… thus leaving the white that already exsists and the transparent color (which will let the blue background behind it shine right through). Can I select a color in photoshop and turn it into a transparent color? Help!
Thanks
Michael
Related Tags
color grayscale transparency turn

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B
Buko
Jul 30, 2004
Why don’t you just make a negative image.
DF
Dan_Forzano
Jul 30, 2004
Use the blending options found in the Layer Style dialog. Assuming your art is on a seperate layer from the solid blue background, just open the Layer Styles dialog for the art layer, (double click the layer or choose Blending Options… from the palette fly out menu).
Then use the Belnd If sliders to adjust the values to get your desired result.

Another option would be to try various blending modes – Lighten might be the best first choice.

However, since you’re working with a "grayscale" image, not just black & white, it might not be that straightfoward. Also, remember that though it LOOKS grayscale, it’s still RGB (or CMYK or whatever color space your image is in). If this is causing problems, you could make a Layer Set with the art, and use a Threshold Adjustment layer. Use a Normal blending mode for the Set.

:Dan
MC
Michael_Campion
Jul 30, 2004
And then do what with it? It turns white black and black white. Transparent or blue doesnt come into the picture.
JS
John_Slate
Jul 31, 2004
multiply
AG
Andreas_Gerlitz
Jul 31, 2004
Not sure if this is what you are after:
Background layer is your blue colour,
Layer 1 has your white letters on it.
Layer 2 is the image (doesn’t matter if it is RGB or CMYK) Make the Background layer and Layer 1 invisible by clicking on the eye symbol in the layers palette. Only the BW image is visible on a transparent background.
Go to the Channels palette and make a selection by Command clicking the RGB or CMYK channel. Back in the Layers palette make the BG Layer and Layer 1 visible again and make the image layer invisible.
Select Layer 1 and hit the mask symbol in the layers palette which transforms the selection into the shape of the mask.
The black parts of your image are now completely transparent and let the background blue through the white letters.
Sorry if this wasn’t what you were trying to do… Andreas
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Jul 31, 2004
See if this works:

Make sure that the photograph has been converted into Bitmap mode and Copy/Paste it into a file which has a blue background layer and a layer of white type.

Select the photograph layer and Cmd. i to invert the image.

Change the layer mode to Screen
and add a Threshold Adjustment Layer to increase or decrease the white areas.

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