Background image with text on top?

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Hmmm... I opened your file in KP, and indeed it seems to work okay in all the various Kindle devices that are available to try out there (although I hate the way that my transparent flower image is no longer "transparent" -- which for me is another reason to give up on trying to do my chapter titles this way).

You can have your transparent flower perfectly transparent; in this case is not transparent because I didn't take the enough time to do that.

However, I've attached here screenshots of how your epub looked in iBooks and in ADE. In iBooks, as you can see the "by Author" text comes out all funny...

That can be fixed.

..., but even worse is ADE -- I don't get one page, but two pages! I've attached screenshots of both of those pages here.

That is not an issue too After tweaking the code all problems disappear.

I guess this is why I've given up on this, putting my chapter titles on a background image. I'm sure you'd probably be able to come up with a way that works, but it's all just too "buggy" for me, I think I'll just go a different way, and keep my chapter titles simple (i.e. "plain text", maybe with a nice picture ornament or something).

It's your decision but you can make the things look good in all ereaders. Below I attached a new epub; try this one. You'll see the things perfectly under ADE and in Kindle DX your ornament will be transparent.

Regards

[Psymon]

You're not just a genius, Rubén, you're a saint! Thanks again so much -- you're very inspiring!

Just a couple more questions (I hope!)...

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

You can have your transparent flower perfectly transparent; in this case is not transparent because I didn't take the enough time to do that.

What is it that needs to be "done" to make the image transparent -- again? I mean, clearly you must have downloaded my original epub to create these sample epubs you've been making, and my original flower image was already transparent. How did it "lose" that? Or is there something else that needs to be done to it in order to get it to work across all platforms?

You can just tell me, of course, you don't have to fix it yourself -- I do want to learn "how" to do this for both now and the future, of course.

It's your decision but you can make the things look good in all ereaders. Below I attached a new epub; try this one. You'll see the things perfectly under ADE and in Kindle DX your ornament will be transparent.

Well, like I said at the beginning here, you've inspired me once again, just when I was on the verge of scrapping the idea of doing it this way!

The only thing, though, is that the flower ornament is not transparent -- not in any of the Kindle devices, except for DX. If there isn't a way to make it transparent, well, I'd probably just get rid of it completely -- but naturally it would be great if it can be, of course.

Thanks again, Rubén -- both for your help and the inspiration!

[DaleDe]

Kindle does not support png so if you used transparency in PNG it will be lost. Instead use a gif image which also support transparency. A free download called Irfanview for the pc can make transparent images.

Dale

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Kindle does not support png so if you used transparency in PNG it will be lost. Instead use a gif image which also support transparency. A free download called Irfanview for the pc can make transparent images.

Oh! Gee, I didn't know that -- I'd read somewhere here along the way that, for whatever reason, PNG was supposed to be better in ebooks than GIF, so I converted what had been all my original GIFs to PNG format! That's easy enough to fix -- I think I may still have all my original GIF files, and if I don't, well, I have Photoshop (I may be just learning about designing ebooks, but if anyone needs help with how to do graphics stuff in Photoshop, just ask away!).

Thanks, Dale!

PS. On a TOTALLY unrelated note, this morning I was labelled in these forums as a "Zealot", and now I see that I've changed to a "Groupie" - where/how do these labels come from??? Is it automated, based on number of posts or something? Or is there someone "out there" who gives us these appellations? Just curious!

[mrmikel]

PNG is great...the best thing that was ever created, according to some. BUT it has a dizzying array of options that can make it hard for the casual user to get a reasonably sized file. There are several programs which can help with this.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

PNG is great...the best thing that was ever created, according to some. BUT it has a dizzying array of options that can make it hard for the casual user to get a reasonably sized file. There are several programs which can help with this.

Except if it doesn't work in Kindle, well, isn't it easier to just go with GIF, all around?

What makes PNG so "great...the best thing ever created" (especially if it does not work in some contexts)?

[Psymon]

Okay, this is driving me nuts now -- not the coding and everything, but rather what I'm reading up on from Amazon itself now. I was just sitting down here today and going through my epub and making all the various changes/additions that have been discussed recently, and found myself confused over what size I should resize those higher-resolution pics to.

Virtually all my hi-res pics are 1200x1800, which came to by doubling-up the usual 600x900 size for epubs. But there was mention here that for my lo-res images (for Kindle) I should make them 600x800 -- which confused me.

So I went searching on the 'net about the size for a full-page image on Kindle, and in the process came upon some places that say 600x800, and then others that say 600x900. So which is it?

What's worse, though, is that I keep seeing references saying that the maximum filesize for Kindle images is 127kb -- really? How could I possibly have any of those higher-resolution images in my book if that's the case?

I'm really not sure what to do now -- can I even have hi-res images on Kindle? If not, that has me wondering what on earth all this coding stuff we've been talking about here has been for -- I mean, what Rubén came up with was specifically to show a hi-res version (for those devices that support that) and a lo-res version (for those that don't).

Every time I think I've "got it", as soon as I start actually working on my book I seem to invariably end up utterly confused all over again. :/

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Psymon

I think I may still have all my original GIF files, and if I don't, well, I have Photoshop (I may be just learning about designing ebooks, but if anyone needs help with how to do graphics stuff in Photoshop, just ask away!).

Well if it was originally a GIF (<=256 colors), and it was converted to a PNG... you can convert it back from PNG -> GIF with zero loss.

GIF/PNG use lossless algorithms (unlike JPG, which uses lossy).

PNG is just more advanced (more advanced compression algorithms, it can do everything GIF can do (besides animation, which doesn't work in EPUB), and can handle images with WAY more than 256 colors).

Originally Posted by mrmikel

PNG is great...the best thing that was ever created, according to some.

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Psymon

You're not just a genius, Rubén, you're a saint! Thanks again so much -- you're very inspiring!

You are welcome but I think I'm not one of the two things

Just a couple more questions (I hope!)...

What is it that needs to be "done" to make the image transparent -- again? I mean, clearly you must have downloaded my original epub to create these sample epubs you've been making, and my original flower image was already transparent. How did it "lose" that? Or is there something else that needs to be done to it in order to get it to work across all platforms?

Well, Dale already answered you this question. You need to use a transparent .gif, and not a transparent .png. Kindle does supports .png files; the problems appear when those png are transparent.

The only thing, though, is that the flower ornament is not transparent -- not in any of the Kindle devices, except for DX. If there isn't a way to make it transparent, well, I'd probably just get rid of it completely -- but naturally it would be great if it can be, of course.

To compose the DX image I converted the flower in transparent gif and then I copied and pasted on the main image as "transparent selection". That's all

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Okay, this is driving me nuts now -- not the coding and everything, but rather what I'm reading up on from Amazon itself now. I was just sitting down here today and going through my epub and making all the various changes/additions that have been discussed recently, and found myself confused over what size I should resize those higher-resolution pics to.

Virtually all my hi-res pics are 1200x1800, which came to by doubling-up the usual 600x900 size for epubs. But there was mention here that for my lo-res images (for Kindle) I should make them 600x800 -- which confused me.

So I went searching on the 'net about the size for a full-page image on Kindle, and in the process came upon some places that say 600x800, and then others that say 600x900. So which is it?

What's worse, though, is that I keep seeing references saying that the maximum filesize for Kindle images is 127kb -- really? How could I possibly have any of those higher-resolution images in my book if that's the case?

I'm really not sure what to do now -- can I even have hi-res images on Kindle? If not, that has me wondering what on earth all this coding stuff we've been talking about here has been for -- I mean, what Rubén came up with was specifically to show a hi-res version (for those devices that support that) and a lo-res version (for those that don't).

Every time I think I've "got it", as soon as I start actually working on my book I seem to invariably end up utterly confused all over again. :/

Don't worry, continue using images (in fact, only one because is the same background for all SVG images) of 1200x1800. And use images of 600x900 for being using when the erader is a Kindle DX (or an older Kindle device). Also there won't be problems if you use a image of 1200x1600 and images of 600x800.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

Don't worry, continue using images (in fact, only one because is the same background for all SVG images) of 1200x1800. And use images of 600x900 for being using when the erader is a Kindle DX (or an older Kindle device). Also there won't be problems if you use a image of 1200x1600 and images of 600x800.

Oh, okay -- that's a relief! But what about that 127kb filesize limit (for images) that saw so many references about? Even on Amazon's own site I saw that.

Also, in your other reply you wrote...

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

To compose the DX image I converted the flower in transparent gif and then I copied and pasted on the main image as "transparent selection". That's all

Yeah, I could easily make those myself, too, in Photoshop, but I thought that the easiest way to do it -- just to save myself some trouble with having to add (and nicely arrange) text to those images for each of the 20+ chapters in that book -- would be to just create them using SVG, send the file over to the iPad, then take screenshots of each page (which is very simple and easy to do on the iPad) and then mail them over to my PC and crop/resize them down to the correct size. A lot less work that way!

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Psymon

PS. On a TOTALLY unrelated note, this morning I was labelled in these forums as a "Zealot", and now I see that I've changed to a "Groupie" - where/how do these labels come from??? Is it automated, based on number of posts or something? Or is there someone "out there" who gives us these appellations? Just curious!

Yes it is an automatic thing. It will change based on the number of posts. You can also have your own message that shows up in the same space. Place your cursor on the dots under the message to get a Karma fortune that also changes.

Dale

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Yes it is an automatic thing. It will change based on the number of posts. You can also have your own message that shows up in the same space.

Aha! You got me poking around a bit, and I found the place. I was wondering about that (before), though! I thought one of the admins here was calling me names or something.

Place your cursor on the dots under the message to get a Karma fortune that also changes.

Ha ha ha -- that's funny! I never noticed that -- apparently there's some bananas coming my way.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Aha! You got me poking around a bit, and I found the place. I was wondering about that (before), though! I thought one of the admins here was calling me names or something.

Oh, no. Trust me, if they were calling you something directly, I'm sure it wouldn't be that.

Ha ha ha -- that's funny! I never noticed that -- apparently there's some bananas coming my way.

Yeah, but then it eventually sits at the same karma level for forrrrrrrrrrrrever. ;-)

Hitch

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Oh, okay -- that's a relief! But what about that 127kb filesize limit (for images) that saw so many references about? Even on Amazon's own site I saw that.

The size limit of 127kb is for .mobi files; for .kf8 the limit is 256kb. But I repeat you, don't worry and continue using a image of 1200x1800. If the image is heavier than 256kb then KindleGen will recompress it to a suitable size.

...but I thought that the easiest way to do it -- just to save myself some trouble with having to add (and nicely arrange) text to those images for each of the 20+ chapters in that book -- would be to just create them using SVG, send the file over to the iPad, then take screenshots of each page (which is very simple and easy to do on the iPad) and then mail them over to my PC and crop/resize them down to the correct size. A lot less work that way!

Good idea