I have an image from a zip file that is a pic of a green leaf on a white background.  When I bring that image into PSP, the background changes to black.  The leaf pic is the same, just the background changes.  I need the background to stay white ....with just some color adjustments to the leaf so it will work in my TG2 program.   Help, please.

Thanks

Lyla

What kind of image is it?  If it's a png, the background might be transparent against a black background.

It is a tif.  Only shows as one layer.  It saves like this.

How many bits is the TIF?  16-bit?  32-bit?  8-bit? etc.

TIFFs can have an alpha channel in them, and I suspect this is what you're seeing.

Assuming your image opens in PSP as background, promote it to a layer first. Then do Selections > Load from Alpha channel (I'm using PSP7, hopefully this will translate to other versions without too much faffing).

Invert the selection, and you'll have the background selected. Now Edit > clear leaving the background transparent. Cancel the selection.

Create a new layer, and place it behind the layer which contains your image. Fill the new layer with the background colour you want, flatten and save.  

Thanks for the replies.   English Bob, your instructions did the trick.  I have printed them as I am sure I will forget this when I have to do it the next time.  :-)

Thanks again.

Lyla

Well, I thought it worked, but it didn't.  When I open the image in TG2 it is still distorted but it is on a white background now. 

On the image details it says:  RGB 8 bits/channel Adobe RGB (1998)....and I forgot to mention this and it probably the most important.  When I first open the image this pop-up message appears:  Document colors were converted to the working space.  Embedded Adobe RGB (1998).  Working sRGB color profile.icm.

Hopefully that will tell someone something that was needed to fix this problem.

What's TG2, by the way?

Am I right in thinking that the image looks fine in PSP, but is wrong in TG2? The easiest way around this may be to save the merged image (you didn't forget to merge the layers, did you? ;) ) in a different format, such as JPEG if that will have enough quality for your needs.

I used to work with medical image processing, and I remember the software guys were always cursing TIFFs because there seemed to be as many different versions as there were images. :)  

They must be cursing HDR and EXR by now, also.  TG2 is Terragen 2.

Yes, TG2 is Terragen 2.  Sorry I didn't say that.

Per your suggestion, I saved the image as a JPEG and found out that TG2 will accept that.  AND it works just fine.   Should have thought of that myself, DUH.......thanks everyone.