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JULY 09, 2003 Customizing iDVD 3, Part 4
Note that when you open it, you see nothing but a blank white image. However, this file does have an alpha channel. If you load it, you'll be able to see the boundaries of the highlight. Here's what it looks like with the alpha channel loaded as a selection in Photoshop.  [an error occurred while processing this directive]So now what do you have to do to modify this? Here are the directions for doing it in Photoshop. You can adapt these for your own image editing program, if need be, so long as your program can save alpha channels in grayscale documents.1. Go into your Channels palette and delete Alpha 1.  2. Create a new layer.  3. Draw your highlight. It doesn't matter what color or shade of gray you use. Remember, the color of the highlight is set in the property list, not the graphic file itself.  4. Command-click on your layer in the Layers palette to select the non-transparent areas of the new layer. (Or, as I'm doing, you can select a color range--white, in my case--with a fuzziness of 200 and then select inverse to capture the highlight effects.)  5. Then choose Select > Save Selection. Save your selection as Alpha 1.  6. Now go back to your Layers palette and hide your new layer. In the flyaway menu, choose "Flatten Image." When prompted, choose the option to discard hidden layers. You should now be staring at a blank white background, just as when you first opened this file. (Incidentally, if you changed the mode of this file to RGB, you'll need to change it back to grayscale before saving.)  So now you're done with your highlight. Go back to your Desktop and click on the file you just modified. Right-click on it, and choose "Get Info." In the "Name & Extension" section, manually delete the .tif extension you added earlier. (Note that you need to do this in the Get Info panel, not directly on the file on the Desktop, or this won't work. Removing an extension on the Desktop only hides the extension and doesn't delete it entirely.)  Now move your new highlight file back into the Materials folder from whence it came (keeping a backup of the old file, if you wish, for safety's sake). Launch iDVD, apply your theme, hit the Preview button and take a peak at your new highlight. In the image below, the highlight is seen on the left button.  If you're modifying a theme that contains multiple button styles, simply repeat these steps for all of the highlight files associated with each of the individual buttons--Linen2.Media.pox, Linen3.Media.pox, etc.--making sure that you keep the names of the highlight files exactly as they originally were before you relaunch iDVD. If you have any further questions, be sure to drop me a line or, preferably, post a message in one of the forums listed below. Contact the author: Dave Nagel is the producer of Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; host of several World Wide User Groups, including Synthetik Studio Artist, Adobe Photoshop, Mac OS, Adobe InDesign, Adobe LiveMotion, Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; and executive producer of the Digital Media Net family of publications. You can reach him at dnagel@digitalmedianet.com. Prev 1 2 3 4 Related sites: • AV Video • Creative Mac • Digital Media Designer • Digital Post Production • Digital Producer • Digital Video Editing • DVD Creation • Film and Video Magazine • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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