remove white box around graphic (gif)

I am trying to add rings to a graphic similar to the olympic rings. I cut a ring from the original grapic in Photo Shop Elements but when I paste it in PM 7.0 it has a white box around it. I am obviously new to Elements but have worked a bit more in PM. I tried saving as a tif and making background transparent but I don't know what I am doing. HELP and THANKS!

Joy,

I can only tell you the way I handle this.

I'd take the picture of the rings, choose Magic Eraser. Judging by the picture, I'd check or uncheck Contiguous. By clicking around on the white background, it would be removed. There's another way with the magic wand, I believe, but I've never used it.

If I think I'll use the picture, again, I'd save it as a PSD file, or a GIF with transparency checked.

Once the background is removed down to transparency, you should be able to use it.

Hope it helps,
Lorace

Joy,

It's been awhile since I've used PageMaker with transparency, but how do you normally handle it? A transparent PSD or TIFF will go into InDesign just fine from Elements. remember that it would be in RGB from Elements as there is no CMYK in Elements.

Bob

Thanks for your help. I tried what you suggested. I noticed gray/white checker board effect inside the white box around the ring and thought maybe it worked. I saved it as psd and placed it in PM but the box still shows up. So I must be missing a step somewhere. Any thoughts? Thanks again.

Thanks for your help. I tried what you suggested. I noticed gray/white checker board effect inside the white box around the ring and thought maybe it worked. I saved it as psd and placed it in PM but the box still shows up. So I must be missing a step somewhere. Any thoughts? Thanks again.

If you've gotten this far, Joy, this is good. Probably the original image you copied was anti-aliased along the outside edge, thus making it difficult to get rid of that fringe/halo effect. You should be able to place your transparent image on a new layer and simply erase the offending square edge halo. It might help to have more contrast to make sure you are getting it all erased. Try adding a new layer beneath your partially transparent rings and fill it with a black or a contrasting color. Then go back to your rings layer and erase the offending halo.

This article about defringing unwanted halo might help you understand what's happening:

<http://www.sketchpad.net/defringe1.htm>

Patti

It's a Pagemaker thang, Joy. See, for instance:

Kenneth Lasley "PM 6.5 shows white box on photoshop transparency" 11/11/03 2:18pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/0>

Barbara,

Thanks for that, as I said, it's been some time since I've used PageMaker (I use InDesign). To add to what you've stated for transparency (clipping path to EPS, which can't be done in Elements), if you also have Illustrator, you CAN use full PhotoShop and create a path (like a clipping path) and save that as an .ai file and use ANY raster format and make the clipping path in Illustrator which then can be used in PageMaker. The problem with EPS, of course, is that it's a postscript only format and especially in PageMaker you will print the TIFF header image to anything but a postacript printer. Also PageMaker has always had a bug (for viewing) with an EPS transparency, in that you must rotate the image (in PageMaker) even as little as .01° in order for the transparency to be transparent. You can rotate it back (-.01°) without losing transparency, but that's so little a rotation eyes won't perceive it.

Bob