Partial Transparency

[Turbo]

Anyone has a clue on how to do partial transparency on Graphics Gale (using the alpha channel)? The documentation is sucky, and google isn't my friend.
Alternative software is fine too, preferably processively light (as in the opposite of Photoshop or the recent versions of Paint Shop Pro) and freeware (not really necessary though).

[ndchristie]

personally, i think you are better off with photoshop, unless you computer is too slow even to open it.  transparency in photoshop uses no processing power, and you can find a crack copy anywhere........which is perfectly legal if you already own a copy of the software (gotta cover my ass on that one )

[ptoing]

WTF, why would someone get a crackcopy of the software if he already has it. Advertising wares is not something we want on this forum.

[ndchristie]

the fact of the matter is that on occasion people who would strongly benefit from software simply cant afford it.  i have cash to buy stuff, and from your tone you do too, but not everyone does.  obviously anyone that can buy something should, but if they cant pay the price and therefor wouldnt buy the product, then the company isnt loosing any money if they get it for free.  since its completely illegal to sell something made with unlicensed software, i only recommend it as a personal alternative for people without excess cash

that being said, i appologize for the comment and will not suggest that in the future. 

if anybody knows affordable software that is good for png's, do let me know

also turbo dont take this the wrong way, im not implying anything about your financial background (as i have no way of knowing it), so disregard it as foolish suggestion

[Overkill]

GIMP, while having lame GTK interfaces in spots, manages to do some things okay. It can save as PNG, and preserve alpha, and it has layers. It's by no means lightweight though. http://www.gimp.org/windows/

As for an application that handles transparency adequately enough and isn't processor intensive, I can't really think of one...

[crab2selout.png]

thobviously anyone that can buy something should, but if they cant pay the price and therefor wouldnt buy the product, then the company isnt loosing any money if they get it for free.

Hmm, I don't really mess around with the alpha stuff in GGale. But the palette window has an extra slider bar above the RGB/ or HSV slider bar. One that is black on the right and becomes greyer as you move to the left(for me, maybe this changes depending on hte BG colour of your window). This seems to control the alpha value. The next thing I dd was make a new layer, go to Image>Make Alpha, and  in hte form that pops up: Create from opaque, and source has the "current layer only" checkboxed.

Afte doing this I found the alpha slider bar works on the selected layer.

Hope this helps.

[Turbo]

Hope this helps.

Thanks, it's exactly what i needed! You Graphics Gale god, you
If someone else uses this, just make sure you're at 16 bit color depth or more when changing the alphas, because at 8 bit it doesn't show the several degrees of transparency (only either opaque or transparent).
I'm going to start using this feature for anti-aliasing "selout" when posting stuff here.

Thanks everyone for their useful suggestions. I had tried Gimp before, but i put that option aside because it's a bit heavy, although being a great free alternative to Photoshop.
I prefer using free software everytime i have the choice, so that my conscience is lighter from not recurring to piracy. I agree with adarias on the point of using software that you'd never buy wouldn't hurt the company that made it, but that shouldn't make us use it as an excuse to do it gratuitously.
On the other hand, i'm cheap, which prevents me from taking the extra effort of actually buying stuff (it being inside my budget constraints or not ).