What about transparency am I not getting?

LG
Posted By
Lorace Graham
Sep 6, 2003
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234
Replies
4
Status
Closed
This is sort of like What about NO do you not understand? But Nancy T said this was the place to ask, so I am.

When I use the word transparency, I visualize being able to look thru something into something else, or vice versa.

Yet in PS2, the only transparency I see is a checkered box which I don’t really want. I’m learning to deal with that. But here’s my problem.

In another program I had on another computer, I used to be able to take a .Gif file and transform the background into a transparency so when I inserted it on the web page, there was no square of any color/shape showing, and the picture was the only thing you saw, against the web page’s background.

I can’t seem to achieve anything like it in Adobe. Is there a way? I also would like to do this for powerpoint shows, etc. and am having an awful time. I can color (with the fill) the background and blend into the show, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, and I’m taking heart, Nancy. You said there were no Stupid questions. LOL – I loved the sharks, too.

Lorace
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Chuck Snyder
Sep 6, 2003
Lorace: Oh, you are so close to having what you want there!

The checkered box is a stand-in for transparency; it will really show up as transparent if you save the image in GIF, at least in PowerPoint. I had never done it before but I just tried it and it worked great. Here’s what I did:

1. Opened up an image of an old house. In the Layers palette, I double-clicked on it and renamed it Layer 0, which converted it from a background layer to a regular layer. Regular layers can have transparency, while background layers cannot.
2. I selected, then erased (via Edit>Clear) the sky and the ground around the house; the checkerboard pattern appeared surrounding the house.
3. I went to File>Save for Web and in the upper right half of the dialog
box picked GIF, Selective, Diffusion, 256 colors, Dither 100% and checked transparency. I then hit OK and saved it on my desktop.
4. I opened up a new PowerPoint presentation, changed the background color
of a new blank slide to a hideous shade of orange, then did an Insert>Picture>From File and grabbed the house pic off the desktop. After resizing and repositioning, the house was there, completely surrounded with orange – no white box!

Not sure how to do it on the web, but I would guess it works the same way.

Chuck

p.s. Great name, Lorace!
NS
Nancy S
Sep 6, 2003
Lorace,

Firstly, I’m glad to see you spit that cork out…hooray!

Chuck’s engineering background benefits people with questions as his answers are always so thorough. In reading your post I knew you were there you just didn’t know it! **checkerboard=transparency** As you probably know, only certain file formats support transparency however, jpg not being one of them.

In Chuck’s example; if he had created a new layer, put a red square on it (positioning it at the same x,y location as the house), dragged that layer under the house, clicked on the house layer to make it active, selected the door and hit delete, the house layer would also have transparency in the door area but you woulldn’t see a checkboard there, you’d see a red door because the lower layer is showing through.

I do hope you are working your files in the .psd format, many advantages for doing so.

Glad you’ve joined the forum Lorace!

Nancy
P
Phosphor
Sep 6, 2003
Incidentally, Lorace, you don’t have to see the checkerboard for transparency. In Photoshop Elements>preferences>transparency you can adjust the size of the grid or turn it off altogether.

It’s not a good idea to do that, though, since you will have a hard time telling when you’ve achieved transparency without it.
LG
Lorace Graham
Sep 6, 2003
Oh, wow! In my wildest dreams I couldn’t have expected such great answers! I am absolutely jubilant. Thanks so much, Chuck, your answer was so clear to me.

And Nancy, yes, I started saving in the Psd format, not knowing why, but it was suggested in several places in the forum, so I’ve been doing it.

Barbara, neat comment – now that I know the checkerboard is not my enemy, I am fine. lol.

Why I even figured out what RGB color is, all on my own!

Thanks, again.

Lorace

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