Transperancy question

[wizard210]

I have this logo that I need to turn black and white. I have succeded in turning it black and white but I need the back ground to stay white because right now the back ground turned grey. how do i come about just making the main part of the picute black and white. I'll attach the pic so yo have an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. By the way i'm using GIMP as my editor. I'm no graphic artist either.

[mindlessLemming]

You need to adjust the image's Levels
(Im not very familiar with gimp, but I imagine the process would be the same)
When you select the "Levels" or "Adjust Levels" option, you should be presented with a histogram. This will usually have three sliders across the bottom; the left for minimum density (black), the middle for midtones (grey) and the right for maximum density (white).
Side note: In CMYK {printing}, maximum and minimum densities are reversed; ie. black is maximum density, white is minimum.
Dragging the left and right sliders towards the centre will have the affect of reducing the images colour spectrum and increasing its contrast.
I've attached your altered image.
:)

[Tails]

This is a simple two-color image, isn't it? Saving it as JPG isn't ideal because it doesn't support transparency. GIF is the most recognized transparent image format. When an image is transparent, an entire color, wherever it is used in the image, becomes see-through. So if you make your gray color trapsparent, any place in the image that is gray will be transparent. If you want only some of the image to be transparent, you can throw in another color (remember, they never see the color that is transparent). Only one color can be transparent in an image.

[bradyj]

This is a simple two-color image, isn't it? Saving it as JPG isn't ideal because it doesn't support transparency. GIF is the most recognized transparent image format. When an image is transparent, an entire color, wherever it is used in the image, becomes see-through. So if you make your gray color trapsparent, any place in the image that is gray will be transparent. If you want only some of the image to be transparent, you can throw in another color (remember, they never see the color that is transparent). Only one color can be transparent in an image.

Unless a png is used; alpha transparency (not supported by PC IE for god knows why) - which controls levels from 0 to 100 of beautiful transparent pixels, is much better output than gif, with the IE problem that requires work arounds that are available.

Incidentally, mindlessLemming knows the difference of jpeg, gif, png and how transparency is carried through all -- I think he was just helping with getting the image swung over to a clean B&W image.:)

[mindlessLemming]

Incidentally, mindlessLemming knows the difference of jpeg, gif, png and how transparency is carried through all -- I think he was just helping with getting the image swung over to a clean B&W image.:)
I think you may be right :)
In fact, I think he only saved it as jpg because that was the format of the original file and he was in a hurry.

[wizard210]

mindlesslemming was right i did save the files as jpeg because i was in a hurry. as i am in a hurry right now. I've been trying to change these other two pics to black and white also, which I am not doing a very good job of. So are you guys saying that I should save these as .gif. Here are the files that I'm working with.

[bradyj]

If you want transparency, then yes -- but if it's just on a white background, go ahead and use a jpeg. Whatever file type is the smallest size and looks the best -- balance the two as much as you prefer.

[wizard210]

I've been working on getting this image black and white but everytime I try it just turns to ****(excuse my french). What am I doing wrong?

[bradyj]

What do you want? The text black and the shadow gray? You can't just turn that into a grayscale image, then, you have to do some photoshop wizardry... I don't know how to do it in GIMP, but I can replace that color in many ways via photoshop. Is that what you're after?

[wizard210]

Basically I want the Text black as you have said and the background white.

[bradyj]

It was easier for me to rebuild it, the stroke and shadow was interfering. This is just the gif, no shadow, black and white. I'll do a shadow one as well -- if you want the photoshop file, let me know, I don't know how gimp will read it. Sorry for the delay, I've been busy all week:

[bradyj]

the problem with swinging the color over, was the fact that the stroke (outline) of the objects were darker than the text... so, if you were to just move it to grayscale, and make it darker, you have this nasty dark outline that's too thick. If you were to replace the color, it would be blotchy -- as the gif made it a horrible image quality and lots of distorted colors. If this was a larger image, then I could have just done image replacement and that would have worked fine -- but the quality made it easier to just retype it (font is Impact) and draw that basic structure. Took ten minutes, other way would have looked worse and been longer.