(alpha) cut

**mireazma** · 05-07-2008, 10:28 AM

Hi everybody! I'm new to this forum and not much older in graphics.
I keep bumping into one and the sane problem when I want to work with layers:

I don't know how to cut an item from the current layer and make it a new layer; the trick is that the item (a heart for example) is softly "merged" with a white background (in the same layer, of course) and I want to cut it so that when layed over a new different coloured background, it merges just as softly.
So, is any procedure to split the layer into a softly transparent heart and the white background?

Thanks in advance

**chrishirst** · 05-11-2008, 05:26 AM

dificult to even consider how, without a reference image. "softly transparent" might mean different things to different people.

At a guess; you should be able to duplicate the background on to a layer and erase out the colours / parts you don't want.