pspframe - Picture frame - formatting constraints

[rnmerchant]

I'm trying to make some custom picture frames.

I have an image and I go to: /file/export/picture frame... This fails with the error message: ""xxx.pspimage" is not a valid picture frame. Picture frames must be 24 bit true color and contain one or two layers with transparency".

Well, PSP doesn't seem to use the term 'true color' but I figure I'll change the image: "/image/Increase color depth/RGB 8 bits/channel" (somewhere google said 'true color is used for RGB, and 8 bits x 3 channels is 24 bits total)

However that doesn't work: when I try to set transparency (/image/palette/set transparency) the error message is : "Image must be converted to a 256 color palette"

THen basically I would normally get a circular set of errors but naturally I don't - I get a "internal program error: invalid execution path encountered".

Oh well. Anyone advise as to how to set up an image to make it into a pspframe? Can I just take an image, with transparency of course, and rename it pspframe? Clearly I'm not understanding some of the terminology here...

Thanks.

[LeviFiction]

I see your confusion. First "Set Transparency" is for palette transparency. And so yes needs to be a 256 palette color image. Like with the GIF. This sets a single color in the palette as the "Transparent color" but it's not true transparency. It just refers to how it's rendered. This is not how you add transparency in PSP unless you're specifically looking to export to a file format that uses 256 index color palette and supports palette transparency. A picture frame, however, is not such a format.

In PSP true transparency is built into the layer. A Background layer cannot support transparency (this is the layer with the icon that looks like a piece of paper with a folded corner). A raster layer can support transparency. This layer's icon looks like a piece of transparent paper on top of a blank piece of paper. If you're working on a background layer you can convert it to a raster layer by right-clicking on it and selecting "Promote background layer". Now you can use the magic wand tool, or eraser, or any other method to delete the portion of the frame that will contain the image.

So to recap, you want a regular raster layer, and the color mode to be RGB 8/bit.

For the picky people out there, yes adding transparency (alpha channel) to a layer makes it a 32-bit image. This doesn't matter. The color is 24-bit with an alpha layer.

[rnmerchant]

Thanks very much - very clear and now it works.

I'd never taken the effort to learn much or anything about layers - never needed to - so you have stimulated me to up my ante!

Richard