So You Want A Transparent GIF, Huh?

[pranaysanghavi]

People [including myself] keep asking all the time how to make parts of an image "invisible" or transparent. So many times someone puts an image on the his or her page and it looks great until the background comes in. Then the little icon reveals itself to actually be square rather than round. Oh, the humanity!

Often an image will look better with a transparent background. A transparent background simply means that you cannot see the background color of the image in your browser. There is a background color but it isn't visible on the web page.

In actual fact, the background color of the web page (no matter what color it is) simply replaces the background color of the image.


Transparent images are useful when you are not certain of the page background color on which your image will be displayed, or you intend to display your image in front of a complex background rather than a single background color. Both GIF and PNG images can have transparent backgrounds. JPEG images cannot. PNG images can also have semitransparent areas that "blend" with what appears behind and in front of them; this is called "alpha channel" blending. However some older web browsers do not support partial transparency.

Here is how to make it...easiest to follow is link 2. :up:

1. Link 1
2. Link 2
3. Link 3

Article is just a pointer to few good knowledgeable tutorials on web.

[Princeton]

not an article