Repeating background jpg image

I have my swf file embed into an html page and currenly have
the background set to #000000. I want to change this to a jpg image
that repeats for the entire background. I want the swf file to
appear with a transparent background so the repeating image shows
through.
I have searched forums, but nothing seems to work for me. The
jpg image will be name "back.jpg" and is going to be located in the
same folder as the swf and html files.
GreenMartian

I finally found this tech note on making the flash movie with
a transparent background. If anyone needs this info.
Transparent
flash movie
Then, all I needed to do was set html background image to my
jpg file, and it worked fine.

Similar Messages

Help with implementing Swing GUI within jpg image

Dear Java Experts,
I have a question, is there a way to implement java swing objects (ie jbutton, jcombobox, etc) within an imageicon. Basically, i am trying to juggle between ways of getting JSwing GUI into a background jpg image. Please help me. I thank you all in advance.

You've it back to front.
Create an transparent extension of JPanel that paints an image on it's
background before running it's super class paint method.
You'll need to extend this example to stretch, center or tile the image
but otheriwse it's complete.
BTW - you have to pass an argument to this example that is the path of
the image you want on the background of the panel, like:
java -cp <whatever> MyJavaProject1 images/something.gif
Enjoy.
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.border.*;
public class MyJavaProject1
     static class BackgroundPanel
          extends JPanel
          private ImageIcon mIcon;
          public BackgroundPanel(ImageIcon icon) {
               mIcon= icon;
               super.setOpaque(false);
          public void setOpaque(boolean flag) { }
          public void paint(Graphics g)
               g.drawImage(mIcon.getImage(), 0, 0, null);
               super.paint(g);
     public static void main(String[] argv)
          JFrame frame= new JFrame(argv[0]);
          BackgroundPanel panel= new BackgroundPanel(new ImageIcon(argv[0]));
          panel.setLayout(new GridLayout(0,2,4,4));
          panel.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(4,4,4,4));
          panel.add(new JLabel("Name"));
          panel.add(new JTextField());
          panel.add(new JLabel("Address"));
          panel.add(new JTextField());
          panel.add(new JLabel("Phone"));
          panel.add(new JTextField());
          frame.getContentPane().add(panel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          frame.pack();
          frame.setResizable(false);
          frame.setVisible(true);
}

Best practice for Spark repeating background image in a SkinnableContainer?

In my old Flex 3.5 code I would accomplish this by dropping an Image into a Canvas and hitting the Canvas with some css style stuff to get the repeat. The Image tag had a source property that would take a web address so I could dynamically grab different images from the web based on some conditions. Little bit more trouble with Flex 4.5 and Spark but I'm trying to get there.
Here Adobe docs explain how to *embed* a background image:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WS422719A4-7849-4921-AF39-57FF567B483B.html#WS063B0 491-B7AB-4b00-A39F-E44310BCB0E0
They use a BitmapFill object in the skin.

    <s:Rect id="background" left="3" top="3" right="3" bottom="3" alpha=".25">
        <s:fill>
            <s:BitmapFill source="@Embed(source='../../assets/myImage.jpg')"/>
        </s:fill>
    </s:Rect>
Problem is I need to do this without embedding the image. In my old code I grabbed the image from web (set source property on Image tag to web address). What's the best practice for achieving this with a skinnable container? The BitmapFill object used above won't take a web address for a source.
Thanks in advance.

Use BitmapImage with a fillMode of repeat:
<s:BitmapImage source="http://www.google.com/intl/en_com/images/srpr/logo2w.png" width="100%" height="100%" scaleMode="stretch" fillMode="repeat" />

Vertical repeating background slice from image

Hi. I'm trying to slice a portion of a Photoshop CS4 image and use it as a vertical repeating background at the top of a web page. Then I'm overlaying the full image in the horizontal center of the web page. No matter how much I try, the background slice image comes out a little washed out compared to the full image -- with a slight border to each slice.
What am I doing wrong? I've tried saving the image slice as GIF, JPG, and PNG, but they all produce the same result. Thanks.

I had the slice set to 2px wide. Once I zoomed in very close, I could see that the right pixel was lighter than the left one all the way down the slice. I had feather set to 0 and it still did this. I sliced it down to 1px and that fixed it.

How do I Customize RoboHelp 11 Responsive HTML5 to include repeating background image?

Hello,
How do I add a repeating background image (not logo) to the layout found in RoboHelp 11 Responsive HTML5?
Is this something that has to be done inside of Dreamweaver?
Where are the RoboHelp 11 Responsive HTML 5 default themes (skins) stored on the computer?
I have seen the following files in RoboHelp 11 and would like to know if it is possible to edit
these files?
Responsive_Layout.fpj
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 11\RoboHTML\Samples\en_US\EmployeeCare2\EmployeeCare2Project\!ScreenLayout!\Responsive_La yout
Glossary.slp
Index.slp
SearchResults.slp
Table_of_Contents.slp
Topic.slp
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 11\RoboHTML\Samples\en_US\EmployeeCare2\EmployeeCare2Project\!ScreenLayout!\Responsive_La yout
By default, there are two themes found in Responsive HTML 5. They are:
Theme1_Standard
Theme2_Government
Where are these themes located under RoboHelp 11?
Thanks in advance for your response.
James

Post moved to HTML5 Layouts forum.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Repeating Background Image

Hey guys,
I've been coding websites for like 4 years now and have used CSS styling long enough for it to effect the way my brain handles coding concepts. Anyway, I also happen to have a CS minor and have been playing with Java again lately. I was wondering if there is any way to make an image (ImageIcon or whatever) repeated for a background for like a JPanel or something. I imagine if there isn't any predefined function for that then it would require some spiffy paintComponent (or paint) code.
But all i'm really trying to do is make a background that is a repeated image. Do i just need to make a really long (or wide) image and hope that the user doesn't exceed that dimension? or is there some way to make an image repeat as a background?
Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Awesome,
I've read into this some and looked at a few tutorials. This definitely looks like something I was looking for. Would this be your suggestion for a background (that's only repeated on the x-axis) of a list of JButtons.
An good example of the effect i'm trying to get is in NetBeans (5.5). (according to default settings) Just under the list of files you're currently editing, there is a list of buttons ( "back", "forward", "find previous occurrence", "find selection", etc). This list of buttons (and it's background) is the effect that I'm going for.
My plan (which is very VERY html-ish) was to have two border images (left and right) and then have the repeated background in the middle with the JButtons (and their transparent background) on top of the repeated background.
It looks like it's definitely possible to use TexturePaint for this, but I just wanted to make sure that it was the suggested method. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

Repeating Background Image Download Question

When you use a repeating background image does the browser
only download it once and then repeat it on their computer?
I wanted to use a gradient background image so I figure to
cut down the dowload size I'd just take a 1 pixel wide slice and
repeat it, does that work?

It works perfectly, I use Photoshop to make gradients and
then insert the psd onto a page, where you get a conversion dialog,
i select 100 for the jpeg quality and uncheck the sharpen color
edges checkbox, you can use gifs if you want, then in your
stylesheet use background-repeat: repeat:x;
or y if you want to have a right to left gradient.
Look at this site i am working on, it uses alot of PS
gradients, all with repeat-x
http://plcstrings.com/

Superimposed jpg image comes with unwanted background

hi.
I cut out an object from a jpg image and made a new jpg image with transparent background. Tested it on image editing program - the background is indeed transparent.
However, when i try to superimpose the image with transparent background on a video in PrE, the image is shown with a white background.
How do i remove that unwanted white background?

Great news!
In many Image editors, Transparency is not clearly deliniated, and it just looks white. With display settings in Photoshop, Transparency will be shown as a checkerboard pattern, but when one does a Save_As to JPEG, that clearly goes white, alerting the user to the lack of Transparency in the JPEG.
Good luck, and happy editing.
Hunt
PS - When you get your plane crashing into the tree, please post a link to YouTube, Vimeo, etc., so that we can see it.

Background nav image not displaying in some browsers...

Hi,
   I'm in the process of building a website template - still ironing out some bugs, but just discovered that the bacground image in my navigation bar isn't displaying on some browsers (including some versions of IE). It works in IE8 where my primary testing takes place (on both my local drive and from the temporary "live" server, but in most other browsers, doesn't show up...
below is a link to my test page:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~jgigandet/trinity/
and here is the css with the applicable code in red:
/*Menu Outer Wrapper*/
.p7PMMh04 {
width: auto;
height: 20px;
margin: 0 auto;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 11px;
font-weight: bold;
background-image: url(img/new_bk.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-x;
background-color: #000;
text-align: left;
line-height: normal;
/*Hide Sub-Menu in Design View
Compensate for LI padding on Sliding Doors themes*/
.p7PMMh04 ul div {
display: none;
TOP LEVEL MENU
.p7PMMh04 ul {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
.p7PMMh04 li {
list-style-type: none;
float: left;
width: 120px;
/* Hide from IE5 Mac \*/
.p7PMMh04 li {
width: auto;
/*Top Level Links*/
.p7PMMh04 a {
display: block;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 2px 14px 3px 14px !important;
color: #ffc42a !important;
/*border-right: 1px solid #8184e6; */
text-align: left;
/*Link hover when no drop down is present */
.p7PMMh04 a:hover {
color: #df8f04 !important;
/*background-color: #DFDFDF;*/
Syntax for special classes programatically assigned to first and last links and also LIs
See user guide for more information
.p7PMMh04 ul a.pmmfirst {
border-left: 1px solid #df8f04;
.p7PMMh04 ul ul a.pmmfirst {
border-left: 0;
.p7PMMh04 ul a.pmmlast {
.p7PMMh04 ul li.pmmfirst {
.p7PMMh04 ul li.pmmlast {
/*First Sub Level*/
.p7PMMh04 ul ul {
z-index: 10000;
background-color: #333;
width: 150px;
background-image: url(img/pmm_carbon_subs.jpg);
background-repeat: repeat-x;
border-right: 1px solid #000;
border-bottom: 1px solid #000;
.p7PMMh04 ul ul li {
float: none;
background-color: #000;
background-image: none;
.p7PMMh04 ul ul a {
padding: 4px 12px !important;
color: #ffc42a !important;
border-right: 0;
text-align: left;
overflow: hidden;
/* rollover on 1st level rollovers */
.p7PMMh04 ul ul a:hover {
background-color: #333; !important;
color: #df8f04 !important;
/*Third Level (Flyouts in horizontal menu)*/
.p7PMMh04 ul ul ul {
border-top: 1px solid #df8f04;
border-right: 1px solid #333;
border-bottom: 1px solid #333;
border-left: 1px solid #df8f04;
SPECIAL IMAGE-BASED RULES
.p7PMMh04 img {
border: 0;
.p7PMMh04 .p7PMM_img {
padding: 0px;
border: 0;
background-image: none;
background-color: transparent;
TRIGGERS and CUURENT MARK RULES
The Closed state relates to trigger items when their child menus are not showing
The Open state relates to trigger items when their child menus are showing
Selectors appended with _left Automatically change arrow position and orientation
if sub levels are set to fly out to the left
/*Sub Level*/
.p7PMMh04 ul a.trig_closed, .p7PMMh04 ul a.trig_closed_left {
background-image: url(img/pmm_south_medium.png);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: right center;
.p7PMMh04 ul a.trig_closed_up {
background-image: url(img/pmm_north_medium.gif);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: right center;
.p7PMMh04 ul a.trig_open, .p7PMMh04 ul a.trig_open_up {
color: #000 !important;
background-color: #DFDFDF !important;   /* This is background color of main dropdown rollover */
.p7PMMh04 ul ul a.trig_closed {
background-image: url(img/pmm_east_dark.png);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: right center;
.p7PMMh04 ul ul a.trig_closed_left {
background-image: url(img/pmm_west_dark.gif);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: left center;
.p7PMMh04 ul ul a.trig_open {
color: #FFF !important;
background-color: #424242 !important;
/*The Current Marker (You are here) links*/
.p7PMMh04 .current_mark {
font-weight: bold;
color: #60c3d1 !important;
.p7PMMh04 ul ul .current_mark {
color: #FFF !important;
Utility Rule used for Clearing floats in Horizontal Menus
.p7pmmclearfloat {
clear: both;
height: 0;
line-height: 0;
font-size: 0;
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Jesse

You have applied a height of "auto"to your menubar container, which gives it no height at all in some browsers. If you have a clue what height you would like to display for your menubar, give it, instead of:
    <div style="height: auto;" id="p7PMM_1" class="p7PMMh04">
Better yet, leave it in the CSS file, where you will find it when you go looking for it. You already assign a height there:
.p7PMMh04 {
    width: auto;
    height: 20px;
    margin: 0 auto;
    font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    font-size: 11px;
    font-weight: bold;
    background-image: url(http://home.roadrunner.com/~jgigandet/trinity/img/new_bk.gif);
    background-repeat: repeat-x;
    background-color: #000;
    text-align: left;
    line-height: normal;
Because your inline style of height:auto; has more proximity (is closer) to the element being styled, it overrides the style in the stylesheet and applies the height: auto; instead of allowing the height: 20px;
Beth

Repeating background not repeating fully

Hi, on the page I have created below, I have made links with the green repeating background that can be seen. However I'm trying to get the background to expand to the width of the page. I've done this before successfully but when I enter my css to do it again, there must be an error.
http://angelsmovingservices.com

karina1717 wrote:
Hi, on the page I have created below, I have made links with the green repeating background that can be seen. However I'm trying to get the background to expand to the width of the page. I've done this before successfully but when I enter my css to do it again, there must be an error.
http://angelsmovingservices.com
Use this CSS and it should work:
#wrapper #header {
    /* float: left; */
    width: 980px;
    text-align: center;
    background-image: url(http://angelsmovingservices.com/images/movers-button.jpg);
    background-repeat: repeat-x;
I have removed the float by commenting it out and also inserted the image to the header. this means you don't need that image in the next CSS covering links.
#wrapper #links {
    width: auto;
    height: 35px;
    background-color: #5A7F0E;
    /* background-image: url(http://angelsmovingservices.com/images/movers-button.jpg);
    background-repeat: repeat-x; */
Good luck.

JPG images not displayed correctly in Bridge and Photoshop (Mac OS)

(Note: I have copied the content of this query from the Creative Suites forum where I originally opened it.)
I am using CS4 under OSX 10.4.11 on a PowerMac G5 Quad with 23" Apple cinema display. Images which have been captured as JPG are displayed fine by Preview, but when opened in Bridge, Camera Raw or Photoshop. the colours are all "washed out". The attached screen capture should give an idea of the difference, with the upper being Camera Raw (image settings) and the lower being Preview. My monitor has been calibrated and I'm using sRGB IEC61966-2.1 colour space in Camera Raw and Photoshop. The colours displayed by Preview are pretty close to "real life". I find it virtually impossible to adjust the colours in Photoshop to get back to anything similar.
After opening the image in Photoshop without adjustment, and Save As JPEG with embedded color profile, Preview displays the new image the same as Photoshop. Save As JPEG without embedded color profile, and Preview displays this copy just like the original. It seems that Photoshop is making different (incorrect) assumptions about what color space to use when there is no embedded color profile. Shouldn't it assume sRGB like virtually everything else (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB)? Or is its interpretation of sRGB incorrect? How can I fix this?
Re: JPG images not displayed correctly in Bridge and Photoshop

xxxxyyyyz wrote:
…If there is someone out there who has experience of obtaining decent colour management in CS4 on a Power PC, I would really like to know how you achieved it.
That would be yours truly, and I hasten to reply because I may have some insights that can help you too.
Just get it it out of the way, here's my setup:
Photoshop 11.0.2 ("CS4"); VersionCue disabled and uninstalled.—2.5 GHz Power Mac (PPC) G5-Quad; 16GB RAM; mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 1,700MHz 512MB VRAM; ATTO ExpressPCI UL5D LP SCSI card; Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.8 boot drives; Spotblight, Dashboard and Time Machine permanently disabled; dual 22" CRT monitors; USB wireless 'n' available but connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet; 1 FW flatbed scanner; 2 SCSI scanners (one tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner); various internal & external HDs; FW Epson 2200 and Ethernet Samsung ML-2850ND printers; 2 X Back-UPS RS 1500 XS units.
I can unambiguously and in good faith represent to you that my color management, from capture to print, is as spot-on as anyone with any kind of setup can hope to achieve. Unequivocally and without qualifications.
Now, first things first: Forget about trying to synchronize color management across the point applications lumped together only by Adobe marketing fiat into a variety of meaningless "creative suites". Concentrate on Photoshop. Do not try to use Bridge to synchronize anything.
The "suites" are a totally artificial construct created by Adobe bean counters and marketing types. The point applications (i.e. the individual programs clumsily bundled together, e.g. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.) are developed independently by separate engineering teams that are not only not in the same building, but in different cities, different states of the American Union, and even in different countries. They have very little communication among them, if any, as evidenced by repeated posts in these forums by Photoshop engineering staff urging us, the end users, to let the other teams know in their own forums that a given problem exists and is actually affecting our work.
Enough said about the cause of the problem. The end result is that Color Management is at very, very different levels of progress and sophistication in each individual point application, with only Photoshop fully entitled to be considered state of the art.
Secondly, a disclaimer: I have been hanging on to my CRT monitors and take care of them as Jascha Heifetz used to take care of his Stradivarius. I don't know what I will do if I manage to outlive the usefulness and accuracy of my CRTs (unlikely at this point). I have despaired in futile efforts to bring the luminosity of any LCD monitor down to where I would feel comfortable calibrating and profiling it. I believe my monitors are the foundation of my color management efforts.
Especially if you have one of the extreme wide-gamut LCD or LED monitors, you'll face an uphill battle.
Be careful to avoid any version 4 icc profiles, whether canned or generated by your calibration software. Stick to version2 icc profiles. Ask the manufacturer of your calibration software/hardware if in doubt.
Here are some not-too-recent, but thoroughly representative screen shots of the calibration results I obtain with my monitors, which I calibrate and profile often and regularly (I validate the calibration at least several times per month).
In a nutshell, my color management practices and settings mirror those described by Bruce Fraser, Jeff Schewe, Andrew Rodney and Gary Ballard's site. I have learned from all of them.
My working color space is ProPhoto RGB. I choose to work with PSD and PSB files. As a long-time, rabid JPEG hater, I only rarely deal with JPEGs, using them sporadically to illustrate a point in this forum or elsewhere in the web. My main output consists of prints.
I only deal with tagged image files (files with an embedded color profile) and often recommend beating up with a baseball bat any moron that hands you an untagged file—figuratively of course, but I find the expression gets my point across unambiguously.
Following is a screen shot of some of my pertinent settings:
Note that I have never bought into the "suite" concept myself. I do have and routinely use Adobe Illustrator 10.x, InDesign 2.x and Acrobat Professional 8.x, but they are all older, independent versions of each point application, licensed at different times.
Be further advised, that the answer to many problems offered by Adobe engineers often is not to install VersionCue, or uninstall it, or at least disable it.
Also, as outlined at the beginning of this post, concentrate on Photoshop, not on synchronizing applications that can't really communicate with each other, despite the claims of Adobe marketing hacks to the contrary.
One big caveat, do not fall into this trap:
xxxxyyyyz wrote:
…I believe my problem has nothing to do with my monitor profile, for several reasons, but…
…It seems extremely unlikely to me that…
You either want to learn, or you don't. You either want to solve your problems, or you don't.
When you start arguing instead of studying, questioning advice instead of following it and detecting where you went wrong, you're on the right track to nowhere. That attitude will get you there fast. Remember you are the one with the problem, and only you can acquire the discipline to learn how to solve it.
Go ahead and ask me anything that is not clear, just don't argue with me please, and don't tell me why you think Fraser, Rodney, Ballard and I are wrong. You see, I am not experiencing any problem that needs fixing. I have an interest in helping you, but not in hearing about your speculations, theories or conclusions.
Good luck.
Wo Tai Lao Le
我太老了

IPad wont show .jpg images correctly

My new iPad wont show .jpg images correctly. They all get a yellow/blue filter almost like a negative photo. This is in Safari, Maps,Youtube and every App using .jpg images. Gifs, and png, viewing video etc is fine. Also the home screen background/wallpaper gets this problem.
BUT saved .jpgs from Safari strangely enough look fine in Photos. (Thumbnails stil look bad though.)
I thought it had to be a software issue, but reseting my device with newest OS (3.2) is not helping.
Any others with the same problem?

Thanks for your reply. I have not created any JPGs, or transfered them to the iPad. I just surf with Safari and all .jpg's are getting this strange colors. When starting Maps the satellite mode gets wrong colors. The background on the home screen are the ones that came with the iPad. Strange thing is that when restoring it with software reset, the background is ok. When choosing a new (even choosing the same one) they get wrong colors when going to the home screen. (They all look good when choosing)
It looks like the iPad is not doing the final steps on rendering the images. (And also have a short blink when being displayed) However as I said, all images look good when viewing fullscreen in the Photos App. Even the ones saved from Safari which looked bad in Safari.

Missing background icon image on wrapping text in IE

I'm using css to add a background image to links in a
paragraph (adding a pdf icon for a link that points to a pdf, an
arrow to a link to an external site...etc). Using "background:
url(/images/shared/icons/pdf-document.gif) no-repeat left 0.2em;
padding-left: 18px;" works as long as the text in the link doesn't
wrap. In IE, if the text wraps the background image disappears, but
the space for it (because of the padding) is still there. If I
resize the browser so the text does not wrap the image suddenly
appears. Any other browser the image is there. The doctype is xhtml
1.0 strict.
Does anybody have any suggestions on how to handle
this?

The code i pasted is just from a sample page. My actual website has lot more stuff in it and still does
not show up.
Best if you upload your page to the web and provide a link so we can see it.
Pardon my ignorance but how do I save the image as RGB
What software do you use to create/edit your images?
In Photoshop, it's Image > Mode > RGB then Save for Web
Most browsers can handle RGB (web) or CMYK (print) images.
However IE cannot read CMYK images. Thus it's best to ensure all images are RGB.

Plotting on jpg image.

hello,
I have a jpg image of some graph. Now i want to plot my own graph created by an applet, on top of this jpg-graph. how can i do it?
( normally i goto the Java forums archives section to look for answers. But in this case, i was not getting the relevant answers.)
ANy help is appreciated.
Thanks

Hi again,
I see what you mean, but now I've another question. Does that downloaded image supposed to change? According to the graph your drawing of course!
Example:
Supposing you're drawing a sin(x), that you would like to compare it with an already made graph of sin(x)...but now if you want to plot a cos(x), you would have to change the background image...
Since I suppose you're trying to compare you're graphic with some other already published it seems a little bit restrictive to compare it with an image, unless your graphic can't change very much, like if you're trying to proof a physical law...but then again you're restricted to the parameters of the downloaded graphic...
This time, maybe is me the who wrote a messy answer...
Good luck,
ANeto
PS-Maybe what you want to do is to let people see, how changing the parameters in your graph, this changes in respect to the image graph...don't know...

CS6 / Mac : I want to placate hand writen words on a jpg image.

CS6 / Mac : I want to placate hand writen words on a jpg image. The words are to be extracted from a letter I photographed on jpg. I guessed that was asked before, if anyone can redirect me to an appropriate tuto I didn't find yet. Thx.

Plonk, what I gave you was a very quick and easy way to achieve your goal, but it was, perhaps, simplistic. But without seeing the underlying image, or the scanned letter. My method relied on the text being black, and the paper it was written on being as near white as possible. It also need the underlying image to have no large areas of very dark tones, or obviously the black text will not show against it.
So to make it a decent test, I found this crumpled letter with a very off white background:
Adding a Levels Adjustment layer, and setting it thus:
I can move all those off white tones (as indicated by the right side of the histogram) to full white, like this
Notice the red arrow on the Levels Properties. Clicking on that icon clips it to the letter layer beneath it, so that it _only_ operates on that layer and no others. This is important. Incidentally, you should also set the levels layer's Blend mode to Luminosity - this prevents colour artifacts creeping in.
Placing the scanned letter layer, with its clipped Levels adjustment layer, we get the following. On the left the Letter layer Blend mode is set to Multiply. You could also use Darken (I bet you can workout why that would work) but Multiply gives a more solid black. The second example has the Blend mode set to Divide. This is a useful trick because it still gives contrast over dark tones, but the text would start to get thin where it overlays very light tones. The third example is the original letter with no Levels layer.
If you work in layout, you'll know that editors chose their images with overlaid type in mind. It would be fairly trivial to make the type black over light tones and white over dark tones by using layer masks with two type layers. You select either the dark or light area, and add a layer mask to the appropriate type layer. Then copy the mask to the other type layer and invert it. That ensures a perfect transition from one to the other.

Repeating background jpg image

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