[Scribus] Q: Adding image with transparency

[D. R. Evans]

william f. maddock said the following at 03/06/2007 04:48 AM :

> If I understand what you are attempting, your problem is a
> misunderstanding of the functionality of opacity. The opacity attribute
> only applies WITHIN THE IMAGE in GIMP, being used to set the blending
> characteristics of the layer having the semi-transparent opacity setting
> with the layers that are beneath it within the GIMP image. Once the
> image is saved to be used in another application, the opacity attribute
> is no longer there. When the image was flattened, the layers blended,
> upon saving to the PNG format, the opacity did its job at that point in
> order to accomplish the proper blending of the layers to achieve the
> final image that gets saved out of GIMP.
> 
> If you must blend the intended background with the image that you wish
> to be 15% opaque, you will have to do so in GIMP, then import the result
> of that into scribus.

Oh! You mean that basically I have to build everything in GIMP? Oh dear.
That will mean that all the image material will end up being on a single
layer in Scribus, which will make the layout much more difficult than I was
expecting, since I will have to lay out all the image material precisely in
GIMP, which is much harder than doing it in Scribus.

I thought I was trying to do something easy, but apparently not :-(



> 
>> I've looked to see if I can find a setting to tell an entire layer not
>> to be completely opaque, but there doesn't seem to be any such
>> setting.
> 
> As I recall, scribus has no opacity function. Personally, I don't think
> it should have one. That should be accomplished in an image processor or
> a drawing program, not in a page layout program, such as scribus. Page
> layout is for laying out the elements of the page. Other than typing,
> those elements should have already been created in another application.
> Depending on the background you intend to use, one thing you can do is
> to take the appropriate portion of the background into GIMP for
> combining with the foreground image, then place the result in scribus on
> top of the background at the appropriate place on the page.
> 
>> So I am very confused about the right way to layer a semi-transparent
>> image on top of a background. Any advice/help (especially if couched
>> in simple terms) would be most helpful.
>>
>> Oh, and this may be a completely different issue, but if I Cut the
>> GIMP image and tried to Paste it directly into Scribus, nothing seemed
>> to happen. It seems like I had to actually save the GIMP image as a
>> PNG image and then do a Get Picture in Scribus. Is that expected
>> behaviour? I don't really mind (it's safer anyway to have a backup
>> file of the image), but it just surprised me that I couldn't simply
>> cut-and-paste the image from GIMP to Scribus.
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