Create Icon with Transparent Color

AS
Posted By
Adrian_Santiago
Oct 18, 2007
Views
315
Replies
4
Status
Closed
For the past few days I’ve been trying to create an icon with a transparent color (magenta: rgb=255,0,255). I have my icon and I want the transparent color background invisible once I put it through the appropriate icon creation software.

However, every attempt has so far created an icon with transparent color bleeding. After placing my jpg or bmp through the icon compiling software, I’m getting bits of my transparent color still showing up. I assume this is due to those bits not being the full 255,0,255. I’ve tried exporting from Illustrator and Photoshop with no success.

How do I create a clean, sharp distinction between my icon drawing/photo and the transparent color so my icon compiler will properly identify and remove the background color?

Illustrator CS, Photoshop CS
WinXP, sp2
zLauncher Iconset Factory
PFCD (zLauncher icon compiler/decompiler)
Related Tags
color create icon transparency

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S
Silkrooster
Oct 18, 2007
Having a color bleed similar to a what happens with a gif file, can be caused by having a colored background or colored matte. By deleting the background layer and setting the matte to none, and verifying the edge of your object does not have a feather, blur or shadow. Then you should get a sharp edged object. Also find out what file formats the software supports and choose one that provides the best quality and an alpha channel.
Silk
AS
Adrian_Santiago
Oct 18, 2007
Thanks.

I’ve been trying to use pre-existing PNG files. They had a shadow, but I tried countering that by creating a path, selecting, filling, and placing over the PNG; then exporting. But selecting the path forces at least a 1 pixel feather.

I will try some of your suggestions.
P
PeterK.
Oct 18, 2007
When you select the path, in your paths palette, click on the triangle icon in the upper left to show the drop-down menu, go to "make selection" and in the following dialog box, uncheck anti-aliasing and any feathering that might be set. Now when you make a selection from a path it will be hard-edged. Keep in mind that this setting is remembered, so if you want aliased edges in the future you will have to select that option through the drop-down menu again.
S
santidiablo
Oct 19, 2007
Unchecking the anti-aliased box really helped define the separation. I was able to eliminate more of the transparent color bleed. Wish I could get rid of that last little bit in a more efficient manner (after this step, I’ve been "saving to web" as jpg, then doing a "save as" on the jpg to convert it to bmp, and finally going into the bmp to eliminate the last bit of off-magenta pixels).

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