Preserved Topic: help with transparencies...

hi everyone.. i'm working on a new design for my page and i'm toying with transparent gifs again.

but honestly, i have no solid understanding of how transparencies are 'supposed' to work, and instead my end products are usually from tinkering for a while.

so, can anyone point me to some good information on how to make transparent gifs? or at least just explain how to make transparent gifs that don't have funky edges that show up, know what i'm saying?

cheers.mikey.milker

Im not sure but I only know one way to make transparent gif. here it goes hope it helps.

In Photoshop make new image 1 x 1 px and check transparent

then go to Edit - save for web and be sure to select gif and to click the transparency check box

[This message has been edited by delphi (edited 20-07-2000).]

Yeah, transparencies must be the hardest thing to work with. I have only slightly gotten them. But I must say I still have trouble with the whole dropshadow, with a transparent area... You just have to experiement with the basics, and finally, you may get it.


www.warmage.org

Assuming you know how to make a transparent .gif, here's one method for getting rid of those "funky white edges." There is no such thing as a .gif whose transparency can interact with the webpage, transparent acts as a color just like every other color. For instance, there is no such thing as a semi-transparent pixel of a gif. I hope you now understand that concept. In order to get rid of the white edges, you need to select your background color, place a layer filled with that color below your image, flatten the image, make a new transparent layer and place it under the flattened image layer, and finally use the magic wand tool with a setting of 0 to remove the outside extra color from the flattened image layer. It's somewhat tough to understand, but the main confusion about .gifs is that they can be semi-transparent.

This is a good place to start........ http://www.ozones.com/handson/HTML
transparency.html

Mikey:
If you remember the golden rule of transparency you can't go wrong... Background Colour.

Always have the background colour of your page set as your background colour for the gif. mbridge gave you one method that is good, but with PS you'll find it quicker to set your gif's indexed palette, and the Export using GIF 89A Export. (Under File of course <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/wink.gif"> )

When your Export window comes up, use your eyedropper tool on that window, to select the background colour that you want made transparent...and bam..it will be so...just save, and you've got your transparency set for your gif on the page.

A quick note would be that Doc has that great tutorial on transparency mentioned above, which helps if you're using a textured background as well
(simply, place the texture as your background in the PSD, then blur that layer until it's a flat shade, it'll still have variations though...so...use the eyedropper to select any one pixel, create a new layer above the background, and fill with that shade).

mbridge was right about one thing, .gif files don't support semi transparency...

but .png files support a four point transparency level system using one alpha layer. So the use of say, the channel you use to do your lighting effects, would render four different levels of semi or full transparency throughout the graphic.

And there's my "mess your head right up" post of the day. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/eek.gif">

sheesh.. that was really simple actually.

i just never figured to change the background color on the export function, to the same color of my web page's background color.... very, very simple, haha.

okay, my stuff is looking a little sharper now, thanks for all the help guys.

cheers.mikey.milker