MS Image Background

Seems to be little interest here so I am answering my own question. What threw me was the slightly gray background when one was in design and how to re-create. Tuned out - all I had to do was pour black into a Paint drawing then make my scene outline on green lines and that works fine. There is a slight "presence" of the picture (which one puts to the "bottom" but it doesn't interfere. The background to the MS is terrific to sit your lighting designer down to. One told me when he set up "Mary Poppins: it was the fastest, easiest cue programming he had ever done. Even the director noted how clean and quick the process was. The dear old Expression III feels very left out of things now!

Seems to be little interest here so I am answering my own question. What threw me was the slightly gray background when one was in design and how to re-create. Tuned out - all I had to do was pour black into a Paint drawing then make my scene outline on green lines and that works fine. There is a slight "presence" of the picture (which one puts to the "bottom" but it doesn't interfere. The background to the MS is terrific to sit your lighting designer down to. One told me when he set up "Mary Poppins: it was the fastest, easiest cue programming he had ever done. Even the director noted how clean and quick the process was. The dear old Expression III feels very left out of things now!

Hey, 

maybe the lazy way..but if you open a MS in ETCnomad on a PC/Mac, screenshot that and then just get the color in Photoshop or similar from the screenshot ?

-Regards,

Matthias

Yeh twas a brillig idea! But no matter what colour I choose (black or near to it), it seems to come up differently when in design or user mode! But it's not really a problem. You can definitely see the picture area in a slightly different colour in the background but the (green) drawing on it and the fixtures above stand out well. Our lighting director was totally awe struck when I showed him an outline of the set and the lights in relation to it. "Gob Smacked" as the Brits would say.    

don't forget that Magic Sheets can be set to show a different background color in Blind, and this Blind color can be activated for Edit mode as well.

Ouch! No. I didn't know that was even possible. Added to to-do-list. This might make it easier to print out a hard copy of the MS. Black background = lots of ink cartridges!