[SOLVED] Images with transparent backgrounds

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Arran

#15
Am I right in slowly beginning to think, that a certain manufacturer of very overexpensive graphic tools for computers feels the pressure of competition from OpenSource software which cuts its revenue considerably? And now employes possibly some gnomes on Forums to insist on useless features who are not even necessary to discriminate these programs?
Have you first consulted the Manual? You can probably find the solution there.

Happy Greetings from Scotland's nicest Holiday Island

vradul

#16
No, you're not.

As a user of software I might suggest a new marketing strategy, but you guys are already using it.

"Scribus! Does anything high end graphics tools do, in only twice the time! Why use tools that work for you, when you can work for our tool?"

And for the kicker, don't pass up any opportunity to try ridiculing anyone who asks for help using Scribus.

......

As I mentioned in my first comment here, I "was" evaluating Scribus vs InDesign to decide which way to go.

My choice is made. Thanks for the help guys.

Nermander

Vradul, you are very welcome to have a look at the source for Scribus, I think that you are underestimating the task of creating a PDF.

This is not just a matter of "not altering" the content, because if that was the problem the issue would not exist.

There specification of the PDF format is almost 800 pages. Creating a print ready PDF including color management is NOT trivial.

vradul

#18
I thought about doing that nermy... but if you and sputnik and arrant are examples of the quality of logic behind scribus that I'd have to work with I'll skip it. I don't have the time to waste.

I have businesses to run that need results now, not 'maybe someday, maybe'.

The apparent business model of "it's hard and we only do trivial work so maybe someday but probably never" that you've advocated for Scribus here doesn't work for me.

utnik

hi vradul

your behavior is rather stupid.
we are scribus users, not the developers! and we have tryed to give you solutions:

       
  • to alter a workflow which is based on a faulty interpretation of the .pdf format
  • where and how to go in touch with the developers
if this is too much of a learning process or if you think indesign is the better choice for you, feel free to use the adobe software. it works well and it has some features scribus can't offer. (there are others, i would miss in id...)
but i can't find any reason to shout around like a drunken idiot...

utnik

vradul

I know it's tough sputnik.

It would be a lot easier for you to sell if the customers weren't so stupid, right?

Nermander

#21
Sell? Who is trying to sell anything? Scribus is Free Open Source Software. Nobody is trying to sell it. It's free for you to use, if you like it. It's even free for you to modify if you don't like it.

What you are saying is essentially that your time is more important than the time of the developers... You want them to spend time on writing features so you can save time.


Now, I have some good news for you: If you check the Embed PDF & EPS Files (EXPERIMENTAL) the PDF will be included "as is" and the transparency seems to be preserved.

If you don't check that option, Scribus will rasterize the PDF using ghostscript.

Note though that this means you will have to make sure all the PDFs use the same colorspace as you are using in the final PDF, because Scribus will NOT tranpose between colorspaces in this case. (Not sure if it does it when PDFs are rasterized either, that's why you really should use PSD or TIFF with correct colorspace embedded.)

[attachment deleted by admin]

vradul

#22
Thanks for answering the question I posed in my first comment. We could have saved all that time calling me stupid for asking about this and wanting it. This is a much better job of "selling" scribus.

That does work. I just tested it. It has some minor issues - the transparency is not rendered in the onscreen document when you get a pdf into an image frame, so adjusting positioning is a little tricky but not something that can't be overcome by being careful. That may be something that can be worked on, WYSIWYG is a "nice to have" and would make the program that much more user friendly, but not a huge obstacle for me.

Transparency does render properly (gradients included) in the final produced pdf, so any adjustments to positioning can be done by simply reexporting the pdf after making them.

As far as "your time is more important than the time of the developers... You want them to spend time on writing features so you can save time"...... yes my time is important, and yes, I want them to spend time on writing features that save time, since that is exactly what I do when I produce software, and it is what my customers expect me to do. Software is used if it works for them and saves them time, and not used if they have to work for it and it costs time.

Thanks again. As I said above, it's a good program. This makes it much more useful, and even professionally usable if the color issue can be addressed satisfactorily, which shouldn't be a problem for others and it isn't for the application I have.

I'll take a second look and do some more testing before shelling out money for InDesign, but it now looks more likely that I can use this in production.

• In this attached rendered pdf the "s" border is on the background (base) level. The image is wider than the border but has a transparent background, and is placed into a transparent frame one level up from the background. The base level has a white background so you will not see the transparency grid in this pdf.

• The final rendered pdf is flattened and is print quality 300dpi because all images inserted into the scribus template and document made from the template were 300dpi, including the template background which is a jpeg with the s border on it.

Notes:
• Under File->Preferences->External Tools->Image Processing Tool - Scribus' default image processor is GIMP. For people like me who are comfortable with Photoshop for image production & editing, you can change this to Photoshop or any other graphics program
• Under File->Preferences->PDF Export->Color set "Output intended for" to printer
• Under File->Preferences->Preflight Verifier I set "Lowest allowed resolution" to 300dpi



[attachment deleted by admin]

Nermander

Quote from: vradul on February 25, 2013, 09:22:55 PM
That does work. I just tested it. It has some minor issues - the transparency is not rendered in the onscreen document when you get a pdf into an image frame, so adjusting positioning is a little tricky but not something that can't be overcome by being careful. That may be something that can be worked on, WYSIWYG is a "nice to have" and would make the program that much more user friendly, but not a huge obstacle for me.

That is probably because the preview is created by ghostscript.

Quote
As far as "your time is more important than the time of the developers... You want them to spend time on writing features so you can save time"...... yes my time is important, and yes, I want them to spend time on writing features that save time, since that is exactly what I do when I produce software, and it is what my customers expect me to do. Software is used if it works for them and saves them time, and not used if they have to work for it and it costs time.

But the developers of Scribus does not have customers. They don't get paid working on Scribus.

If you want to, however, you can pay somebody to do work on Scribus. Scribus is Open Source thus any skilled programmer could work on it.

vradul

#24
As I said, it is not an obstacle for me. However making scribus as easy to use and intuitive for others would help scribus attract more users, which is why I suggested it.

I'll leave that to you, as you are not "selling" scribus for money, but only doing your best to "sell" the idea of paying money to scribus developers. You may find that a bit easier if you recommend to others here in this thread who try to ridicule or call stupid potential scribus users who ask questions that they stay away from anyone asking questions about scribus in order to avoid driving them away to some other product. I am persistent. Many people who could be scribus users may not be.

Since scribus is able to render a final exported pdf file with transparency, then scribus somewhere internally is not doing so when rendering document image frames on screen containing pdf's with transparency, but is rendering them some other way there. Perhaps converting an image contained in a pdf to png when displaying documents on screen may be one possible way to go, I don't know. I leave that to scribus and/or ghostscript developers to determine.

But again this is not an obstacle for me. For my needs scribus appears now to be at least minimally functional and usable, though I will do more testing before deciding whether or not to use it in production.  I hope it continues to improve, and makes your "not" selling job that much easier with each new improvement.

If I needed more functionality I would pay for for it, but I don't need more functionality. This is the end of this thread for me.


Nermander

Quote from: vradul on February 26, 2013, 03:08:27 PM
As I said, it is not an obstacle for me. However making scribus as easy to use and intuitive for others would help scribus attract more users, which is why I suggested it.

And, as I wrote, there is no goal to attract more users.

Quote
I'll leave that to you, as you are not "selling" scribus for money, but only doing your best to "sell" the idea of paying money to scribus developers.

No, you are misunderstanding me, I am not suggesting you should pay the Scribus developers money. I am suggeesting that you hire someone (who is not yet a Scribus developer) to modify Scribus for you. I am trying to explain the advantages of Open Source software to you, because I get the impression that you do not understand how it works.

Quote
Since scribus is able to render a final exported pdf file with transparency, then scribus somewhere internally is not doing so when rendering document image frames on screen containing pdf's with transparency, but is rendering them some other way there. Perhaps converting an image contained in a pdf to png when displaying documents on screen may be one possible way to go, I don't know. I leave that to scribus and/or ghostscript developers to determine.

Scribus is (currently) doing wrong in that an embedded PDF is transfered to the created PDF "as is". Scribus SHOULD modify the PDF to for example make sure that color spaces are the same, that fonts are not included several times etc.

vradul

I use open source software of all kinds extensively. That is why I looked at scribus. Probably much more than you've ever heard of, since I've been a developer for more than 40 years.

I also see that you like the others in this thread never miss a chance to try to slip a tongue in cheek insult that falls flat on its face whenever you can.


Arran

#27
@ Utnik: Häsch au s'Gfühl, de «vradul» schpinnt im höchste Grad?   
Have you first consulted the Manual? You can probably find the solution there.

Happy Greetings from Scotland's nicest Holiday Island

utnik

klar! – dä muesch eifach lo totloufe...

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