Photoshop help?

[serai]

.
Question time!


I'm putting together a business card design, and I need a little help. I want to include a coat of arms in the design. I've found the pic and bled out the colors to make a simple black-and-white line rendering of the image to insert. However, the card is going to have a colored background, so I need the coat of arms to be on a transparent surface rather than a white one, so that when I place it on the main background image, the contours and colors will show through the line drawing. (So there won't be a big WHITE block in the middle of the color image.) Is this making sense?

How would I do that? How would I remove the white background of the line drawing so that the lines "float" by themselves without ANY other color than the lines? Does anyone know how I would do that?

If anyone knows how to go about this and can explain it clearly, I'd sure appreciate it!


I'm using Photoshop CS2, by the way.

Comments

[wyna-hiros.livejournal.com]

I don't use photoshop for graphic design but I can ask my sister about it. Can you show a rough draft image of what you've got laid out? (it's hard to see what you're talking about with just the text)

You might have to manually mask stuff out.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you, hon. I'm going to PM you with the pics. :)

[lunarising.livejournal.com]

I've had to do this before. If you've already removed the colors so that you have just lines, duplicate the layer. Just to make sure you have just the lines you want, turn off the bottom layer by clicking on the eye next to the layer in the layer box. Then go back to your duplicated layer which should just be lines and 'select all'. Open a new 'document' (you may want to color it red or anything but white) and then paste the layer you copied into the new document. Now you should see the black lines of the crest on top of the red background. You can use this document to create the colors of the crest as you want them. If it's going to be in different colors, make sure you don't merge the layers until you're done. I'd color the bottom layer white when you're finished, that way you can crop and copy the image as you want it. Hope this helps!

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Hi! I tried what you said but the results were still the same - the layer was black-on-white just like the original. :(

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Actually, create a new transparent layer below the layer with your graphic on it.

Then erase all the white bits - anything you want erased. There are easier/more efficent ways, but the good old eraser will do it.

You'll see the grid show though - that'll be transparent.