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How can I paste an image while preserving its transparency?


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Hi, I recently made the jump across to Affinity Photo from Paintshop Pro.   I'd appreciate your advice on how to paste transparent images in Affinity Photo.

 

image1 is a standard (rasterised) image.

 

Image2 is a logo with a transparent background.

 

When I try to past Image2 as a new layer into Image1, the transparent layer of Image2 turns to black.  

 

How can I past Image2 as a new layer to Image1, while preserving its transparency? 

 

Thanks in anticipation of your advice.

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If you're pasting the images, you must be copying them from somewhere. It might be the copying rather than the pasting which is the source of the problem.

 

You will probably get better results if you can save the images in a standard format such as JPEG, PNG or TIFF and then place the saved images in your document.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Since JPEG does not support transparency, it would not be a good choice for image 2.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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Since JPEG does not support transparency, it would not be a good choice for image 2.

 

Agreed (although there are ways around that, such as tweaking the blend options) but it would be fine for image 1.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Depending on your browser, and perhaps also your operating system, you may find that a PNG image copied from a web page has a black background instead of a transparent one. You can get around that problem by saving image 2 and then placing the saved image in your document, but you shouldn't need to do anything special with image 1.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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  • 3 years later...

This problem is still not solved. Take an image on a webpage with a transparent background. This could for instance be the "Google" logo in the middle of the page of www.google.com. If I right-click this and say copy image it will be in the clipboard with a transparent background. I can check this by pasting it into an application like paint.net - works like a charm, transparency retained. However, if I paste it into PowerPoint, the background becomes black. This is *really* annoying.

 

googlelogo_color_272x92dp.png

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2 hours ago, Swiss Kauboy said:

However, if I paste it into PowerPoint, the background becomes black.

Does this have anything to do with any of Serif's Affinity apps?

BTW, welcome to the Affinity forums.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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2 hours ago, R C-R said:

Does this have anything to do with any of Serif's Affinity apps?

Yes, it does.

If you cut/paste a transparent png into Affinity, the transparency is lost and the background becomes black.

This is not an issue with the copying.   I can paste the same transparent png from my clipboard into, say, Jasc Paintshop Pro, or other image editing apps, and it retains its transparency.    

Only when pasting from the clipboard into Affinity Photo is the transparency lost.  

It is a significant PITA and cost in time.   I have to save transparent PNGs as separate files, then load them into Affinity Photo separately, and then cut and paste them from within Affinity Photo.

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1 hour ago, Appogee said:

If you cut/paste a transparent png into Affinity, the transparency is lost and the background becomes black.

For what very little it is worth, the background does not become black nor is the transparency lost when I try this on my iMac.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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Windows does not maintain the transparency, as pointed out by @Appogee.

I tried this in PSP, and the black background is included, BUT in PSP there is the command to Paste as Selection, which removes the black background. I tried to find something similar in AP, but apparently there's not.

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7 hours ago, R C-R said:

For what very little it is worth, the background does not become black nor is the transparency lost when I try this on my iMac.

Unfortunately, it's different for windows. AFAIK, browsers like Chrome don't copy the image (data type), but only the displayed data without alpha channel. You not only lose transparency but also all metadata and colour profiles of the image. Hence, this behaviour (transparent background in a PNG becomes black or white when pasted into any app) is not connected to Affinity's apps. 

Saving the image as PNG and importing it into the app you need it in, should maintain transparency and all other data on windows systems.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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24 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

AFAIK, browsers like Chrome don't copy the image (data type), but only the displayed data without alpha channel.

Using the latest version of Chrome on my Mac & copying (for example) the Google logo at www.google.com works fine -- when pasted into an Affinity document (as an Image layer) transparency is preserved. Same with Firefox.

So I guess this a Windows only thing?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So I guess this a Windows only thing?

Yes, it seems so. 

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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2 minutes ago, haakoo said:

In aPhoto/aDesigner/aPublisher>place and paste the url/link in the filename field

I am not sure what you mean by "filename field." Maybe it is just because I have not yet ingested enough coffee this AM (or possibly more likely that senility is setting in faster than I thought) but I can't find anything like that in AD or AP on my Mac.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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An additional method for Windows is to drag the transparent web image to your desktop then drag that image into your affinity app

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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1 hour ago, haakoo said:

When one uses the place command it will show an explorer window where one can choose a file.
But it also shows a field where one can enter a filename.

I see. Maybe I am still missing something but in the Mac versions I can find no field for the place command that accepts URLs, or for that matter any field that accepts filenames. There is a search field, but it only searches for files that match the search criteria.

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21 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I see. Maybe I am still missing something but in the Mac versions I can find no field for the place command that accepts URLs, or for that matter any field that accepts filenames. There is a search field, but it only searches for files that match the search criteria.

You are using macOS, not Windows, so forget about URL palaver and just drag the image from the browser window to the Affinity canvas, or copy from browser then paste in Affinity. Job done.

 

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16 minutes ago, anon2 said:

You are using macOS, not Windows, so forget about URL palaver and just drag the image from the browser window to the Affinity canvas, or copy from browser then paste in Affinity. Job done.

I know what works with the macOS. I am just trying to better understand how that differs from Windows & how that impacts providing help for issues like this one.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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23 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I know what works with the macOS. I am just trying to better understand how that differs from Windows & how that impacts providing help for issues like this one.

You were shown a screenshot from an Affinity app on Windows that highlighted where a URL can be pasted. You have the Affinity apps on macOS. Compare. End of story.

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11 minutes ago, anon2 said:

You were shown a screenshot from an Affinity app on Windows that highlighted where a URL can be pasted. You have the Affinity apps on macOS. Compare. End of story.

To begin with, the screenshot shows the German language interface & from what I could tell from it there was no URL pasted into that field, just a (local?) filename.

But more to the point I wanted to make sure I was not missing some obscure way in the macOS to enter a URL into some field in the place dialog window. I thought that would be obvious to everyone from the inclusion of  "Maybe I am still missing something ..." in my previous reply & thus the end of that story. You seem to want more, so I hope you will consider this its final chapter.

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Just now, R C-R said:

To begin with, the screenshot shows the German language interface & from what I could tell from it there was no URL pasted into that field, just a (local?) filename.

But more to the point I wanted to make sure I was not missing some obscure way in the macOS to enter a URL into some field in the place dialog window. I thought that would be obvious to everyone from the inclusion of  "Maybe I am still missing something ..." in my previous reply & thus the end of that story. You seem to want more, so I hope you will consider this its final chapter.

German? Looks like Dutch, not Deutsch. Anyway, haakoo told you in English that you could paste a URL in the field which he highlighted in the screenshot

 

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1 hour ago, R C-R said:

..... & from what I could tell from it there was no URL pasted into that field, just a (local?) filename.

Haha! It's the link to your own avatar! 😂

(sure, we don't see the .com bits, and he could have downloaded it.......but he did say URL)

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