Sprite Shadows

[Thagoras]

So, I'm curious about what others have tried to remove the shadows from premade sprites (or am I the only one who does this?).
Other sprites I've worked with had solid grey shadows that I could just use a simple color replacer to remove....but these shadows are different. Note the gradient edges. The shadows are color neutral...so that's a plus. I was thinking I might pull these into Paintshop Pro and just use a layer to change the color (to purple or whatever) and then just color swap the purple out....but then the purple infects the lines of the sprite too....which are much harder to remove.
Any ideas?

 

[otimpyre]

Duplicate the image mess with brightness and contrast washing away the shadow on the duplicate. select the background including tears in wing using a tolerance of about 20-30. Then invert selection deleting altered brightness contrast dragon revealing true color beneath. Then invert again painting entire background black or white.

However this image has white in and maybe black. That will vanish in game and will require a lot of repairs.
This is what would happen if you try to use that in ultima without fixing all the black and white pixels in it.

I used a green background in fiddler to reveal the parts in image that will vanish. They are too dark or to bright. Can't be darker than rgb 008 or brighter than rgb 247 247 247

 

[Thagoras]

Oh wait....so you're talking about a mask? I've played with something like that before...but a long time ago. I'll see if I can't remember how to do it in Paint Shop.
Oh, and your image probably contains the dark blacks pixels because it's a jpg and not the original png. I HATE it when I see a really good sprite but it's in jpg format.
Thank you!!