10-03-2009, 11:35 AM
Hello: I just found this forum today. It seems great.
I have created many picture tubes in the past, but it has been a while. I am trying, rather than my prior experience of creating a collection of multiple single images in a tube, to create an image "hose" tube. I went to great effort to create a patterned disc image and save and free rotate it 5 degrees repeatedly, to create 72 images that would rotate a full 360 degrees, in repetition, as I dragged the tube across an image. I thought I set everything up right, but I hit a road block when I try to export the tube. I get the message, "To export the image as a Picture Tube, the image must be 24 bit and have only one raster layer with a transparency." I am not certain on how many of those requirements I have missed the mark, but I hope someone can help me sort this out.
I am perplexed, because when I read the Help menu on creating picture tubes to refresh my memory, it advised I select either 8bit or 16 bit RGB, and these are, in fact, the highest that are offered in the New Image tool. I thought I was doing the maximum possible and would be "ahead of the game" when I selected the 16bit option. So my first problem is I have no idea how to create the required 24 bit image.
The second problem is, when I create the picture tube grid, I can't figure out how to get a single raster layer. I initially created a transparent grid and pasted single raster layer images into each cell. However, when I discovered the difficulty exporting the tube, I checked in the Layers menu and found "Merge all (flatten)" to be available, so it appeared I did not have a single layer.
In response, I merged the layers and of course then found my grid full of the white background I did not want. To get rid of that, I used the magic wand to select the white background, inverted the image to reselect the appropriately spaced created images, and copied those created images as one image to paste them into a new transparent grid set up appropriately for the picture tube. I did this only to find that again, "Merge all (flatten)" was available, so I still did not have a single layer, in spite of having flattened it all as I outlined. I am left to wonder whether this is part of the problem or if this is to be expected, and the color bit depth was the only real limiting problem.
So the questions are: 1)Can I convert the image from 18 to 24 bit RGB color depth after the fact, and if so, how? If I cannot do that, how do I go about creating a 24 bit RGB color depth image in the first place, when the New Image tool allows 18 bit as the maximum? 2)Should I find, on pasting single layer images into a transparent grid, that I have a single layer, and if so, what might I be doing wrong that it repeatedly comes up as multiple (presumably 2) layers that can be merged, but then only to give a white background that I do not want in the picture tube?
Sorry for the length of this, but I did not know how to explain it any more efficiently. Thanks in advance for any consideration and assistance.
Rob R
I have created many picture tubes in the past, but it has been a while. I am trying, rather than my prior experience of creating a collection of multiple single images in a tube, to create an image "hose" tube. I went to great effort to create a patterned disc image and save and free rotate it 5 degrees repeatedly, to create 72 images that would rotate a full 360 degrees, in repetition, as I dragged the tube across an image. I thought I set everything up right, but I hit a road block when I try to export the tube. I get the message, "To export the image as a Picture Tube, the image must be 24 bit and have only one raster layer with a transparency." I am not certain on how many of those requirements I have missed the mark, but I hope someone can help me sort this out.
I am perplexed, because when I read the Help menu on creating picture tubes to refresh my memory, it advised I select either 8bit or 16 bit RGB, and these are, in fact, the highest that are offered in the New Image tool. I thought I was doing the maximum possible and would be "ahead of the game" when I selected the 16bit option. So my first problem is I have no idea how to create the required 24 bit image.
The second problem is, when I create the picture tube grid, I can't figure out how to get a single raster layer. I initially created a transparent grid and pasted single raster layer images into each cell. However, when I discovered the difficulty exporting the tube, I checked in the Layers menu and found "Merge all (flatten)" to be available, so it appeared I did not have a single layer.
In response, I merged the layers and of course then found my grid full of the white background I did not want. To get rid of that, I used the magic wand to select the white background, inverted the image to reselect the appropriately spaced created images, and copied those created images as one image to paste them into a new transparent grid set up appropriately for the picture tube. I did this only to find that again, "Merge all (flatten)" was available, so I still did not have a single layer, in spite of having flattened it all as I outlined. I am left to wonder whether this is part of the problem or if this is to be expected, and the color bit depth was the only real limiting problem.
So the questions are: 1)Can I convert the image from 18 to 24 bit RGB color depth after the fact, and if so, how? If I cannot do that, how do I go about creating a 24 bit RGB color depth image in the first place, when the New Image tool allows 18 bit as the maximum? 2)Should I find, on pasting single layer images into a transparent grid, that I have a single layer, and if so, what might I be doing wrong that it repeatedly comes up as multiple (presumably 2) layers that can be merged, but then only to give a white background that I do not want in the picture tube?
Sorry for the length of this, but I did not know how to explain it any more efficiently. Thanks in advance for any consideration and assistance.
Rob R