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Again one of the Very Frequently Asked Questions: 'How do I make transparency in an image for my website?'
I must admit it: I've seen this question asked so often, that it took me very long before I even ventured to try it myself! Besides, this Site's background is not made of one solid color, so I can't even use transparancy... that's what I thought back then, as a newbie....
OK, I've overcome my newby fears, and i've learned some, so I'll try and teach you: just take my hand, and follow.
Open or create an image, background any color you want: the transparant color will be any color you want, too! By right-clicking any occurence of the color you want to make transparent with the Magic Wand you make that color the background color!
Now go Menu > colors > Set Palette Transparancy
and in the box that appears now mark "Set the transparancy to the current background color".
Note: in PSP6 it's even simpler as in that version this same box will allow you to just pick the color you want transparant by clicking on it in the image!
Choose "Save as" and
pick the extension "gif"
as the format to save in.
Don't press OK just yet!
Press "Options..." (the lower of the 4 buttons in above window), and in the Save Options box that appears mark 'Version 89a': only that version of gif will support transparancy! Now, finally, press 'OK' to save!


The results: at the right is the original image, the left one had transparancy set as described above.
Admit it: you didn't find it hard at all!!

 

Finally: some warnings!

On a dark background, it often seems that transparent images appear with white or whitish borders or with white 'jaggies' around it:
While you create the image, try not to have 'antialias' on because, in order to camouflage the jagged edges of the pixels colored, 'antialias' will try to make these jaggies less visible by filling the border area with transitional colors. These will, not being exactly the background color, by definition show up after you apply transparancy!

Note the thin white line near the top of this image! That line is transparant.
I put this up just to show you that transparancy is not possible for only one color: transparancy is possible only for one shade of one color!! In any image only the similar occurrences of one given solid color can be made transparant. Got it?

WARNING:
If you'd now open the resulting image we used here in PSP again, you would just see the white background again!
Remember: Gif transparancy is NOT the same as transparancy in PSP!

I think, or at least I hope, what's in this little tutorial should be enough to get you well on the way!
If not, or if my way of teaching this subject is not the right way for you, why not go visit the tutorials sections of PSPUG or PSPIZ? I promise you I'll not be offended!

That's all, folks!

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© Fried Kampes - Randwijk, the Netherlands, January 2000

 

 

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