Help-Can't background clear of image

[theporter2000]

Help Two images ... I Can't clear the background of either image but both display in browser first is gif second is jpg.
I am using L View Pro Image Processor 2002 + windows 98.
I would be very greatful of any help.

[Beach Bum]

post a link to the page and we can take a look.

[jdavia]

I'm not sure of what that program can do but the background of the image needs to be "transparent".
Unless someone else can dispute me, only gif's can have a transparency, (one color).

In Photoshop/properties,transparent.
Even in MsPaint with the attributes off. You have to save it as a gif.

Any animation program will make the background transparent, (You will be only adding the code to the image, not making an animation of it).

A work around can be to use a background color the sams as the color you want to be transparent. Not always the effect you may want.

Let us see the images, maybe one of us can do it for you if you are not successful.

[Stefan]

Originally posted by jdavia
only gif's can have a transparency, (one color).

PNG can have up to 8-bit transparency in indexmode, 8-bit with 24-bit color & 16-bit transparency with 48-bit color.

Additionally, a properly compressed PNG is usually 20-30% smaller then a corresponding GIF.

Of cource IE/Win is buggy with PNG having more then 1 transparent color in index mode unless you apply some intricate DHTML and use proprietary MSCSSX (OTOH 1 transparent color is all GIF has to begin with).

Opera 6, NS 6+, Win/Mac all have excellent PNG support.
(Especially funny is how MS manage to support PNG correctly on MAC OS for years when even the latest and greates Win version doesn't...)

[jdavia]

OK, PNG isn't one of my favorites, so I left it out. The post mentioned GIF and JPG.

The address below will explain the reason of my post
http://archive.devx.com/projectcool/...ansparent.html

I am not refering to how many bits the transparecy can have. I refer to the indexed colors to be transparent
In actuality, the color is not transparent. You are telling the Browser not to show that color in the image's alpha channel code. That is why it can only be one.
As far as I know, only PNG and GIF can have a transparent background color. Care should be taken not to select a color that may make other parts of the image transpareny too.

[Stefan]

Originally posted by jdavia
The address below will explain the reason of my post
http://archive.devx.com/projectcool/...ansparent.html

This is not chritism of you but of that page you link to.
It's just filled with inaccurate information about PNG, and if you use that as basis I understand why PNG doesn't impress you very much.

"... PNG files are made of a fixed set of indexed colors."

That is incorrect. It can be indexed colors, but it's not limited to it.

"The transparency feature lets you tell one of those indexed colors to be transparent"

That is true only for GIF. With PNG you can set 1, 2, 3... 256 of those colors to be transparent with 8-bit full alpha channel.

The guy that wrote that page obviously doesn't have a clue what PNG is let alone how to use them.

I refer to the indexed colors to be transparent In actuality, the color is not transparent. You are telling the Browser not to show that color in the image's alpha channel code. That is why it can only be one.

That is true for GIF, but it is NOT true for PNG.

http://entropymine.com/jason/testbed/pngtrans/

[jdavia]

Thanks for enlightening me Stefan. I need that sometimes. I assumed png was the same as a gif, but was hardly used because of some copy rights controversy, so I never bothered to know more about them.

[Stefan]

Originally posted by jdavia
I assumed png was the same as a gif, but was hardly used because of some copy rights controversy, so I never bothered to know more about them.

It's actually the compleate opposite.
GIF uses a licenced compression algorithm and image software companies pays high fees to implement it in their software (which ultimately trickles down to the paying user).

PNG is 100% free and doesn't cost anyone a dime to include in software.

So that people are still using GIF at all has more to do with old habits as well as many graphics software don't take proper advantage of the format. Hell even PH 6 costing $1000 couldn't properly generate 8-bit alpha in indexed mode, and the documentation outright lied about PNG capability to cover up this huge bug in the software (I even mailed them about it but never got a reponse). Haven't bothered checking if PH 7 fixed this as I got fed up by the crappy PNG support (another big thing was that PNG compression was apalingly bad, often leaving files I could manually compress another 20-40% after Photoshop was finished) and moved to Gimp instead (which isn't really much better, but at least it's freeware...).

Well I'll stop ranting now

[jdavia]

Well Stefan that was a mouthful. You had me in a classroom on that one. Now I know more about PNG than any other image extention, It was good to get up to date. Thanks for the rant.

[Kel]

Hey ThePorter,

I'm not familiar with L View Pro Image Processor 2002, but to accomplish transparency on my machine, I have to resort to the programs provided with '98. This is mainly due to the cheap mindset of our I.T. department, but I digress...

The first step to making any image transparent, at least in the case of .gif, is to save the file AS a GIF. Once you do that, you can proceed to make the image Background Transparent. You'll have difficulty with this though, especially if you're converting from JPG to GIF. JPG is a nutoriously low-quality format, meaning that your background color, while appearing solid, may actually consist of several different colors of varying shades/hues/etc. It might take a long MS Paint session to cleanup this mess, unless your program has a magic wand or similar which would allow you to select similar colors and change it all to be the same. After you've verified that your background is all ONE SOLID COLOR, you'll have better luck with the following:

I've heard varying reports on this, there may be a way to 'Set Transparency' within Microsoft Paint itself, but it's been my experience that the only program Windows has to do this is Microsoft Photo Editor. Open MPE, and click on the small wand with the rotated Carat, (the controltiptext reads 'Set Transparency') Set your color by clicking on it, save as .GIF, then check your results in I.E.

Hopefully this helps!

Warmest Regards,

Kel

[jdavia]

OK, I will attempt to explain this again.
You can make the background transparent in MSPaint. It is work, but if you have no other program, here's how:

From the menu bar click on "Image now click on "Draw Opaque" to remove the check mark.

Next, this has to do with maintaining the size of the image:
Again click "Image" then "Attributes" Set it to your image size. (If not known, set it 10 wide 10 high) Paint will adjust it.

Now to open your image:
Use "Edit/Paste From" In the new window, click the button for "File Types" and click "All Picture Types"

Now that the image is there:
At the bottom are the colors.
Select Foreground with a left/click.
Select Background with a Right/click.
Do likewise with the tools.
Left/click is Foreground and right/click is Background

[Stefan]

Originally posted by Kel
I have to resort to the programs provided with '98. This is mainly due to the cheap mindset of our I.T. department, but I digress...

Gimp is freeware and pretty much on the same level as Photoshop unless you are into professional printing.

You can download that from www.gimp.org and put a smile on both your and your cheap IT departments faces
It's available both for Linux and Windows.