Making transparent GIFs

[Terry Pinnell]

I'd be interested to learn what software others here use for making
transparent web images please? (Maybe I should have included PNG in
the subject, although I gather support for that format is still
limited.)

What prompted the enquiry is that I came to make a transparent image
on Friday. As usual I was in a hurry, and found myself floundering. I
was using my normal graphics program, Paint Shop Pro 7, but also tried
8. I eventually succeeded, but I'm darned if I found it intuitive.

FWIW, the image, what I would call a 'spoke diagram', is at
http://www.cupod-mentoring.com/s-jones2004.htm (which currently has
*two* variations of it, until I decide which one to leave.)

I've subsequently been stepping through it again in PSP, and in
parallel exploring other ways of making transparencies. (BTW, I
thought I'd found the sort of no-brainer I'm seeking in Corel Photo
House, but I'm darned if I can get that sorted either! Anyone here use
it please?)

Any feedback would be appreciated please.

 

[Stefan B Rusynko]

Pretty easy in PSP w/ a .gif
- make sure your background color is set to that you want transparent
- Colors Set Transparency & select the option to use your background color


--




| I'd be interested to learn what software others here use for making
| transparent web images please? (Maybe I should have included PNG in
| the subject, although I gather support for that format is still
| limited.)
|
| What prompted the enquiry is that I came to make a transparent image
| on Friday. As usual I was in a hurry, and found myself floundering. I
| was using my normal graphics program, Paint Shop Pro 7, but also tried
| 8. I eventually succeeded, but I'm darned if I found it intuitive.
|
| FWIW, the image, what I would call a 'spoke diagram', is at
| http://www.cupod-mentoring.com/s-jones2004.htm (which currently has
| *two* variations of it, until I decide which one to leave.)
|
| I've subsequently been stepping through it again in PSP, and in
| parallel exploring other ways of making transparencies. (BTW, I
| thought I'd found the sort of no-brainer I'm seeking in Corel Photo
| House, but I'm darned if I can get that sorted either! Anyone here use
| it please?)
|
| Any feedback would be appreciated please.
|
| --
| Terry, West Sussex, UK
|

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Pretty easy in PSP w/ a .gif
- make sure your background color is set to that you want transparent
- Colors Set Transparency & select the option to use your background color

Thanks, Stefan. I now see that it is indeed straightforward.

Apart from my own inexperience, plus the haste with which I was trying
to get it done, my confusions arose from several factors. Here's a
summary in case it helps others who end up googling here:

1. The distinction between the meaning of 'transparency' in the .PSP
and .GIF contexts was slow to become clear to me. I now realise that
they are quite different. PSP transparency is a true lack of any
colour, used with PSP files for a variety of graphic design reasons.
GIF transparency, apparently for use exclusively in web pages (my
focus), is achieved by ignoring one specific colour. IMO PSP's GIF
Optimizer dialog uses both terms rather ambiguously. PSP7's Help on
'Existing image or layer transparency' is "Existing image or layer
transparency, which uses the current transparency information", which
told me nothing. (And PSP8, which was where I started, doesn't offer
*any* context Help from that dialog.)

2. When an image is saved but not closed, the image still in the
workplace is not the saved image. For instance, a GIF image can only
be a single layer and up to 256 colors. When you save a multi-layered,
16 M image as a GIF, and if you say Yes to the 'Merge layers ...'
message, the image on the screen now has the .GIF extension, but it is
not a GIF. Only after closing the image and then opening the saved
image via the File/Open procedure will you see the actual GIF saved.

3. Even when you do have the 'actual GIF' on the screen, transparency
is not shown until you use Colors>View Transparency. (On several early
occasions I'd apparently succeeded in creating a transparent GIF, but
didn't know it.) IMO the default viewing mode for a GIF with
transparency should be to show the transparency, i.e. the chequered
area.

4. At one point I'd happily thought I *had* found a simple but
definitive indicator of whether a GIF was transparent or not. I'd
placed the tool icon for View Transparency on my tool bar, and it
seemed that if this was greyed there was no transparency, and vice
versa. But this proved illusory. (I *think* the greying occurs when
the GIF has been set to 16M colours?)

5. I'd seen no recommendations for what now seems to me the most
obvious way of doing it, the one you recommend above, namely:
Colors>Set Transparency, choosing the option 'Set the transparency
value to palette entry:', and specifying the colour by left-clicking
it in the image area itself. The GIF Optimizer, which was what had
been recommended to me elsewhere, with or without its wizard, seems
sort of excessive/redundant?