Get Materials Palette to revert to orig setting TRANSPARENT

[Smitty]

Hello!

When first using PSP (X8 ~Ultimate), if I had an image, used the Marquee tool to select an area, then pressed the DELETE key, that area would be "deleted", leaving the usual transparent "chequerboard" in the region just deleted.

If the Materials palette is examined at this stage, it also shows the background "colour" to be a "transparent chequerboard".


Later, using the colour-picker, I chose a colour, and it correctly set the Materials Palette background colour as desired (for something else I was doing).

However, now when I select a region in any image, using the marquee tool, if I press the DELETE key, instead of getting the usual transparent "chequerboard", it leaves behind the colour.

I'm just trying to figure out how to get the Materials Palette background back to it's original setting, so when I press the DELETE key, the functionality is the same as before and the region within the marquee selection shows the transparent chequerboard.


I can't believe trying to get this setting back seems so difficult!
I've looked through the manuals (including bought manuals as well as PDFs), checked the forum, etc and cannot find anything that states how to do this.

There is a "transparent" button in the materials palette, but if you click on this, you don't get the Transparent Chequerboard. Instead you get a grey circle with a diagonal line through it (presumably meaning "not available"), and when pressing the DELETE key, it leaves a grey colour.

Looking online, there seem to be posts saying "you can't select the background colour as "transparent" because "transparent" is not a colour. If that's the case, how come PSP starts off with a transparent background colour?
Again, just looking to get PSP back to how it was originally!


Additional Notes:

There is only one layer.
Thus, it's definitely not a case of "there's a layer underneath with a colour coming through".

Many thanks. Any help would be DEEPLY appreciated.

[hartpaul]

I suspect you are confusing what is happening to a Background image v a raster image (Background promoted to raster image via right click the Background layer and choose Promote Background Layer.)

Note also that a Background layer will auto promote to a raster layer when you
1. use the eraser,
2. Use the background eraser,
3. Use the Move or pick tool and click on the image.

Now in the materials palette:
The top large box is the Foreground and Stroke Properties.
The lower right box is called the Background and Fill Properties.
Two very small boxes mirror these colors to top right and are called
Foreground and stroke color and
Background and fill color and they never show transparency

These have remained the same since back in PSP 8 at least.

A. If you make a selection in an image which shows as a background layer and hit delete it will show the background color . It does not take notice of the two properties boxes so if one of these is transparent there is no transparency created from this. eg change the background Properties box to transparent OR a strong texture OR an obvious pattern and again select and delete and you will always get the Background Color.
You cannot have the Foreground Properties AND the Background Properties showing transparent at the same time. You can have the Foreground Properties showing a very light texture and the Background Properties showing Transparent. You can fill a selection with each of these by using a left click fill and a right click fill

B . If you have the image as a raster layer (promote Background )
a. Make a selection and hit delete you get transparency All color boxes remain unchanged. The background color is not used the fill that transparent space as with a Background layer. As well the Background Properties box does not auto change to transparent. (" it also shows the background "colour" to be a "transparent chequerboard".) - I would suggest that you had previously changed the Background Properties box to transparent. Also I hope you mean the Background Properties box and not the Background Color box which I cannot get to show transparent
b. Change the Background properties OR Foreground Properties (properties boxes) to transparent (none of the other boxes change) make a selection and delete , you get transparency as normal.

The transparency of the properties boxes does not operate with the Paint Brush or Fill tools.
The transparency of the Properties boxes does operate with the Shape tool and the Text tool