Have you ever been sent a logo to use in your projects that has a background color? Isn’t it frustrating to try to get rid of?
Layer mask can be jaggy, too soft and inaccurate for fine detail.
What the client doesn’t consider is that you have to somehow make it work within your project, with your colors. You don’t always have a large black or white area to place the logo in. If they would just give you the logo on a transparent background, your problems would be solved!
So what do you do with this logo that has a background color? And what if you need to change the color?
White on Black
If it’s just a logo on a black or white background, it’s an easy fix. For black backgrounds, just set the layer mode to screen (sometimes lighten works better). This ignores that black background and only allows the image to show through. Now you can put it wherever you need to in your layout, regardless of the background color.
Black on White
For a logo on a white background, set the layer mode to multiply (sometimes darken works better). Like above, this will ignore the background, essentially making it transparent, and the logo can be placed anywhere.
Easy Color Changes with Solid Color Fill
If you need to change the actual color of the logo—say you were given a black logo, but the client wants it in their PMS blue—that’s an easy fix, too! Unfortunately, this method will only work with an image that truly has a transparent background.
- Select the layer that needs the color change.
- While holding Alt (Opt for Mac), go to the adjustment layer menu at the bottom of the layers palette and select the Solid Color option at the very top of the menu.
- In the dialog box that comes up, check the box next to Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask. This will make the changes only affect the logo.
- Select the new color from the color picker and click ok.
- Done!
If the Solid Color layer accidentally becomes detached from the logo layer, simply go to the Layers Palette and Alt (Opt) click between the two layers. This will put them back into the Clipping Mask relationship.
You can also use this technique to make a white logo black or the other way around. This is better than simply inverting the colors, because if the logo wasn’t a pure black or pure white to begin with, the opposite color won’t be pure either—you’ll end up with a shade of grey.
How have you dealt with difficult files such as these in the past? Do you have a different method?
Technorati Tags: Design, Graphic Design, Logos, Photoshop
This is all very useful! Thanks! My methods have included using Corel Knockout (which sometimes works very well), zooming in as far as possible and carefully applying various eraser brushes, and (my favorite) praying to various and sundry demons for help.
Alec,
Haha, well I’m glad you’ll now have a better (and more reliable) way to get rid of the backgrounds! Layer modes are great to experiment with for other things, too; they produce all kinds of neat effects.
Ahhhh, the horror of 72dpi / 200px by 200px client provided logos. I have actually been so lazy sometimes that I have designed the (usually) poster around the provided logos background colors. Yes, I can be that lazy.
I always tend to just recreate the logo in illustrator. Not only is it a learning experience and a challange, but it always helps you problem solve and figure out how someone else came to that final result of the logo. This has improved my speed with the pen tool and I have actually learned probably 5 or 6 new techniques on my own from just remaking someone’s logo. Now, sometimes you have 5 to 10 logos on the document. In that case I would DEFINITELY not recreate all of them (unless of course they were all willing to pay for the new vector files, heh heh heh =P)
Cody,
I don’t think designing around a given element is lazy at all! It actually says something about your skills as a designer when you have restrictions like that (self imposed or otherwise) and you still turn out a good design. Recreating the logo in Illy is another way to do it, too, but then, you are not getting paid for that. Although, like you said, it does build your skills which is valuable to you. I suppose it depends on how complex the logo is. Some of the new “Web 2.0” logos can be pretty complicated with their gradients and transparencies!