What software to edit Sage channel logos?

[wayner]

I have been unable to find a good set of channel logos for Canadian (specifically Rogers Toronto digital) channels for Sage. Therefore I am downloading the logos from some web sites. The logos that I have found look good except that they have black or white background and transparent background logos look much better in Sage. Does anyone have some software that they would suggest using. I am trying out Axialis IconWorkshop which is pretty good but it is $50 which is a bit much for the occasional playing around.

The primary requirement is that the software must have an easy way of converting a background from a set color to transparent.

[MeInMaui]

How about the Gimp? I use Photoshop myself, but this should do what you want.

Aloha,
Mike

[Armondole]

Wayner, if you ever manage to get your icons completed would you be willing to share them with a fellow Sagetv user? I'm in Ottawa, but Rogers here carries a very similar line-up.

Another decent option might be Paint.net? Free software that has enough options for simple editing.

Cheers,
-A

[bialio]

Paint.NET is awesome - way more user friendly than GIMP or Photoshop.

btl.

[wayner]

Thanks for the suggestions guys - I started using Gimp and it looks like the learning curve is kind of steep. I was able to make the background transparent but it seemed to go back to white when I saved as a jpg due to compressing layers or something like that. Paint.net is next.

Armondole - I will share these. Do you want to give me a hand with the editing?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by wayner

I was able to make the background transparent but it seemed to go back to white when I saved as a jpg due to compressing layers or something like that.

I don't think jpg files can have transparency... try saving the file as a png instead.

- Andy

[Armondole]

Originally Posted by wayner

Armondole - I will share these. Do you want to give me a hand with the editing?

Sure thing. Are you editing them to a specific size ratio or an exact dimension?

Send over whichever ones you want me to help with.

[wayner]

I think you are right Andy - I will try to save as a png and try again.

Armondole - Here is a post from Brent on the topic. I am downloading the logos from these two sites.

http://www.satlogo.com/hi-res/a_1.html
http://www.iconharmony.com/icons/

How about I start from the letter A and you start from the letter M and we touch base in a little bit. If there are any other Canucks out there willing to pitch in please help. Note that I haven't really figured out how to make the background transparent in paint.net yet. I did figure it out in Gimp but Gimp seems mucho complicated.

edit - I am using Gimp as I have figured out how to do this in Gimp for now.

I am using the same size as I get from the satlogo files. The satlogo seem to be easier to convert than the IconHarmony but I will try a few of both.

[wayner]

Here is how to make a logo transparent using Gimp:

Load Image
Click Layer|Transparency|Add Alpha Channel
Click on the Magic Wand (aka Fuzzy Select Tool) and then click on the background in the image. This should outline the part of the image that you want to keep.
Click on the eyedropper or Color Picker Tool and click on the bakcground.
Click on the Bucket Fill Tool.
Click on the Mode dropdown and select Color Erase.
With the Bucket Fill Tool click on the background
Save as a PNG image. The filename will have to be the same as the channel in sage - ie. for TSN this will be "TSN" for Showcase it will be "shcasec"
Restart Sage and you should see the logo in the channel guide.

[Armondole]

Here's how to quickly do it in Paint.NET:

Click the Magic Wand Tool (or any selection tool)
Click/surround the Region you want to remove
Hit the delete button on your keyboard
You're done

Make sure to save as a .PNG file

[olde]

Apologies for the long post, I'm just ranting...

I'm in Oakville/Mississauga, sucking channels off Cogeco Digital Cable and Buffalo's antenna broadcasts, which together add up to way more than a hundred unencrypted channels. Not bad eh? East of Toronto seems to be the magic territory for OTA.

So, the first few days of my SageTV setup process seems to me to be about adding channel logos that could so easily be added automatically by connecting SageTV to Wikipedia. So far, Wikipedia has been the best place to find HD-friendly logos, (those being large image files that are not too large, although I' not sure how large too large would be).

But first I cheated and downloaded other people's collections of logos into the well hidden folder where the channel logos need to be stored. C:\Program Files (x86)\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos. I ended up with a few hundred logos that I did not recognize, probably some were from those American states where they watch a lot of non-Canadian stuff?

Anyway, I restarted SageTV over and over again, each time I re-named a logo file. This is to check that the logos files show up on the EPG properly. The file names have to match the EPG name (e.g. WHEC.jpg will show up on the channel called WHEC. Not sure what channel number that was, maybe something like channel 30-2, but the image is the NBC logo. Yeah, it all makes about as much sense as a game of lucky dip.

Then I thought of checking out the OTA (over the air, local broadcast) listings for Buffalo at Zap2It.com, which seemed to help me interpret all those WHEC abbreviations into recognizable network channel brands. My antenna points exactly South East, into the heart of US generosity regarding free TV, but I do wish those Americans could spell.

Then I thought of checking out the cable company's lineup, by visiting their website. Then, I went through and started renaming file names again, thinking to myself, as one does in the middle of the night, how all this manual labour--or labor if you are in the US--is a rather crazy waste of time. Then I thought maybe I should start posting some of these logos, to share them with everyone else who has to go through the same nonsense.

But I fear that I am only adding to the overall logo-chaos, my files (zipped and dutifully uploaded), are all different sizes, do not have transparent backgrounds in some cases, use file names that may need editing for your region, and do not distinguish between SD channel logos and HD channel logos.

Is there any way to avoid logo-chaos, shouldn't EPG's automatically fill in logos? WNYB-DT took me about half an hour to figure out, its actually now branded as My Buffalo channel. So, I suppose I will need to do all this crazy stuff every month to check that they are all up to date, right? And now that the leaves are falling off the trees, new channels are showing up un-logo-ed... Yikes!

Maybe you guys know a more sensible way to do this "channel logo mapping"?

[Brent]

Originally Posted by olde

Maybe you guys know a more sensible way to do this "channel logo mapping"?

Hmm I think most of this is explained above, but in case its helpful I did a write-up on how to add TV Channel Logos to SageTV last month

The main thing is to rename your logos to match the EPG name you see in your guide for those same channels.

[wayner]

If you have the logos I don't think it is too bad, or too hard to rename them. I keep open the Sage guide which gives the channel name and just rename the logo file to include the station call name. I am almost complete creating logos with the help of Armondole. I will post my logo files in the download forum in a few days. I have created transparent logos where possible. I started with files downloaded from the sites that Brent mentioned. Some of the logos look great, some not so great. I haven't bothered differentiating different stations on the same network - i.e. I have about 6 CTV channels all using the same logo.

[wayner]

I have posted files with Canadian Logos in the download section of these forums -enjoy!

[mkanet]

I use Paint.NET as well

Originally Posted by bialio

Paint.NET is awesome - way more user friendly than GIMP or Photoshop.

btl.