transparent background on desktop?

I think

I got the idea of making a transparent background (save for web- gif) around a picture with a drop shadow on it. This worked in PS CS3 but when I set it on my desktop it has a heavy white border around the shadow. I googled this and apparently one can have a transparent image on the desktop with Win XP (I have) but with Win 7 it changes it to a jpeg and fills it in white (I think the work around for this would be to make the back ground of the picture the exact same color as the desktop background, but that’s another version and doesn’t relate) I could do that with mine, too, but I’d like to keep it transparent, if possible.
How it started, picture and transparent background with drop shadow.
http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa455/starchild_dreams3/ kitties_setup.jpg
Saving for web keeping it transparent? It has the transparancy box checked and under it "no transparency" but those settings didn’t seem to relate. http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa455/starchild_dreams3/ saveForWeb.jpg
On the desktop (backgroun is grey) there’s a whte border around the shadow. Not a big deal, I just had it pictured as looking like a "real" shadow under the picture. I suppose if my desktop was white it would be okay.
http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa455/starchild_dreams3/ kitties_desktop-1.jpg
If I’m going to have borders around it, I’ll use PSDude’s action that makes it look like 2 photos (one tilted) he posted around back (and I use quite a bit) I think the original background on that is transparent (or maybe the layer is just locked) that might look good on the desktop.
I love the kitten picture, someone posted it on face book and don’t know the source or the original.

On Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:58:47 -0400, "Carrie"
wrote:

I got the idea of making a transparent background (save for web- gif) around a picture with a drop shadow on it. This worked in PS CS3 but when I
set it on my desktop it has a heavy white border around the shadow. I googled this and apparently one can have a transparent image on the desktop with Win XP (I have) but with Win 7 it changes it to a jpeg and fills it in white (I think the work around for this would be to make the back ground of the picture the exact same color as the desktop background, but that’s another version and doesn’t relate) I could do that with mine, too, but I’d like to keep it transparent, if possible.
How it started, picture and transparent background with drop shadow.
http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa455/starchild_dreams3/ kitties_setup.jpg
Saving for web keeping it transparent? It has the transparancy box checked and under it "no transparency" but those settings didn’t seem to relate. http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa455/starchild_dreams3/ saveForWeb.jpg
On the desktop (backgroun is grey) there’s a whte border around the shadow.
Not a big deal, I just had it pictured as looking like a "real" shadow under
the picture. I suppose if my desktop was white it would be okay.
http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa455/starchild_dreams3/ kitties_desktop-1.jpg
If I’m going to have borders around it, I’ll use PSDude’s action that makes
it look like 2 photos (one tilted) he posted around back (and I use quite a
bit) I think the original background on that is transparent (or maybe the
layer is just locked) that might look good on the desktop.
I love the kitten picture, someone posted it on face book and don’t know
the source or the original.

try saving as png 24

Perfect! Also, regular png works too.
Think I need to look up and review the different file types PS uses and what they do. I’ve just kind of stuck with jpg and gif (habit)

On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:21:06 -0400, "Carrie"
wrote:

Perfect! Also, regular png works too.
Think I need to look up and review the different file types PS uses and what they do. I’ve just kind of stuck with jpg and gif (habit)

gif only uses 256 colours.

you could have 256 colours of shade to get the drop shadow effect
you can mess with the transparency dithering, personally i don’t think it is clean enough end product though