Everything you ever wanted to know about transparency but were afraid to ask.
9
votes
8answers
2k views
Transparency to unpremultiplied RGB + Alpha
I have a transparent layer in Photoshop CS5 (so internally, it's most probably stored as unpremultiplied RGB component plus an alpha component per pixel).
Now I want to transform this to an opaque ...
8
votes
4answers
20k views
Photoshop CS5: Setting a black background to transparent
I have an image of smoke over a black background. If I set the blending mode of this layer to screen, the image's background is perfectly edited out, however if there isn't another layer below this, ...
7
votes
3answers
9k views
Add transparency to an existing PNG
I'd like to use this image on a web site.
What I need to do is change the background from black to transparent, so I can use the arrow on my site maintaining the page background.
I used Gimp to ...
6
votes
2answers
147 views
Why does painting with 1% opacity not always do something?
I tried this with Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. When I have a black background, and a white brush with an opacity of 1%, the color should get brighter if I click onto the same spot over and over again. ...
5
votes
2answers
8k views
Making the background of an image transparent
I have some jpg images and I need for each of them to have a transparent background.
I have GIMP as a graphic tool.
I need to put them in a web page and I need to see just the main element and have a ...
5
votes
2answers
3k views
Why does my transparent PNG not look good?
I want to convert a JPG to transparent and using GIMP I added alpha layers and transparency same way I make a GIF transparent I converted it to PNG but it doesn't display well when I load it on my ...
5
votes
3answers
10k views
Copy & Pasting from Photoshop to Illustrator loses transparency
I often run into this issue. I'm creating a file in Photoshop with masked layers etc. I want to make the final output available for some mock-ups in Illustrator, so I rasterize the layers and marquee ...
5
votes
2answers
273 views
How can I remove white pixels around circles when exporting this to gif?
I took the loaders from here:
http://xooplate.com/template/details/10888-5-animated-loading-spinner-action-icons-psd
Than I exported them easily, with the help of the included action to a gif. But I ...
4
votes
5answers
410 views
Convert foreground motif to degrees of transparency?
I have a 24-bit PNG where the motif is a subtle pattern. The pattern itself is in light greys, i.e. the background color of the PNG is #eee and the pattern is in a range of slightly darker greys.
I ...
3
votes
5answers
4k views
Replace black background with a transparent background
How can I add transparent background on this image instead of black background, but I also would like to keep the partial transparency effect on some of the particles and particles borders.
Could ...
3
votes
3answers
183 views
What to avoid when using negative shapes / text for logos expected to be placed on a glass door
I'm not a designer (as is probably obvious from the vague question), but I'm being asked to design the signage that will go on the front of our offices. Our logo is deliberately simple, blocky white ...
3
votes
3answers
762 views
Formula for finding out the result of a color after applying x% opacity to it?
I have 2 colors
#a1a2a4
black (#000000)
white (#ffffff)
Now I need to know how much opacity (in a percent) must I apply to the second color (black) against a background of the third color (white) ...
3
votes
2answers
156 views
Batch replacing color with transparency
I have a very large number of PNG images (too many to practically do one at a time) with a bright pink background and would like to replace the background color with transparency. If this is not ...
3
votes
2answers
4k views
How to make an animated gif with a transparent background without overlap?
When I try to make a gif with two frames both of which have a transparent background in GIMP, what happens is that the first frame looks OK, then the second frame appears on top of it, such that you ...
3
votes
1answer
363 views
Can I extract shadows from a texture to make a transparent image (png)?
I have this image:
And I would like to extract the dark parts (shadows) to make a transparency consisting of black pixels at different alpha channel values. Here is a crude example image of what I ...
2
votes
2answers
997 views
Photoshop - Extracting a transparent shadow from an image
I have a layer that contains a brushed metal texture. The layer has an inner shadow effect.
I'd like to extract just that shadow with transparency, so I can later superpose the pure background ...
2
votes
2answers
111 views
Photoshop: How to use a non-white background as the basis for semitransparent layers in PNG8 export?
PNG8 is a great compressed format when we don't really need semi-transparency. Often an asset will have semi-transparency data that we're happy to lose in the export process, however Photoshop ...
2
votes
2answers
101 views
Size and transparency differences when saving PNG by different methods
I'm exporting PSD layers to PNGs for a game's texture atlases.
When I'm doing Copy -> New File (RGB 8-bit) -> Save As PNG, the resulting PNG is quite heavy and Finder shows white background ...
2
votes
1answer
317 views
is PNG-24 being converted to PNG-32 in Photoshop?
when i save an image in Photoshop as a PNG-24 with trans on, does PS actually convert that to PNG-32 but not tell me about it?
2
votes
1answer
167 views
How to edit an animated gif in gimp to include transparency?
I have an ajax spinner which unfortunately has a white background in the corners. I want to remove the white and make it transparent using GIMP. How can I go about doing that? I tried opening it in ...
2
votes
1answer
26 views
Is it possible to have a the magic eraser apply to ALL layers at once?
I have a gif of characters dancing on a white background, and I want to use the magic eraser (or an equivalent selection tool) to select and clear the white background to make it transparent.
...
2
votes
1answer
568 views
Using GIMP, can you “erase” a color?
I'm presently working on an iOS application and I am attempting to reverse engineer their standard alert dialog window. I have managed to figure out what the alpha value on the background it uses is ...
2
votes
1answer
228 views
Get transparent color to create specific color on a specific background
I've got some Images like this one:
Now I need to find out the color which will become the orange in the right center of the image when drawn on a new layer with 50% opacity (The Background is the ...
2
votes
2answers
363 views
Separating a stock photograph from background
I purchased some stock images for a website I'm building (I'm a programmer, with relatively no design experience at all). The issue at hand is, like most stock images, the images I purchased are on ...
2
votes
1answer
45 views
Forcing transparency on layers below
I am pretty new at Gimp, so not sure if this is possible at all.
Let's say I have two lines like this, and I give the impression one line is on top of the other by clipping at the intersection, like ...
2
votes
1answer
787 views
“Punch” transparent hole in inkscape, without destructive boolean operations?
I have a black rectangle, and I want it to look like a stencil, with "cut-out" text in the centre.
In this image, I have converted both objects to paths and used the boolean difference tool:
(I'm ...
2
votes
1answer
45 views
How flatten transparency without rasterization?
I have a simple illustration in CorelDraw with overlapping simi-transparent curves with uniform fillings, and I need to export it to EPS while maintaining everything in vector form. It is perfectly ...
2
votes
1answer
528 views
Subtract object's stroke from adjacent objects (to create a border of negative space)
I really don't know how to explain this in words in a simple way, so just take a look at the photo I've linked to below. I have a compound path, and I want to multiply it, but have a "stroke of ...
1
vote
2answers
424 views
How to make a transparent image a non transparent one?
I am a newbie to Photoshop and I have a PSD file that contains a transparent button. Now I want to duplicate that button and move it to somewhere else. When I moved it I realized that the button is ...
1
vote
1answer
114 views
“Replace” image (gradient) in image with alpha
Consider the following graphic:
Note that the first image's background is transparent, and that the blue background in the second and third images is a subtle gradient - not solid color.
...
1
vote
1answer
64 views
How do I handle thumbnails of white-on-transparent pngs in Bridge?
When handling multiple white-on-transparent png images, I am hindered by the fact that the thumbnails of these images are all-white. Both Adobe Bridge CS6 and Windows Explorer suffer the same problem, ...
1
vote
1answer
338 views
Coloured background in illustrator that isn't included in export
I have an illustrator document with many artboards. Almost all the artwork is white and needs to be exported as (transparent) pngs. In order to see the artwork I have to put a large grey rectangle ...
1
vote
1answer
56 views
Photoshop cloning non opaque image
Using Photoshop CS6, I have a PNG with some transparencies with soft edges.
I need to clone a semi-transparent area, but when I do that I always end up overlapping the original image, losing the ...
1
vote
1answer
630 views
Photoshop - turn white transparent, specifically preserving shadows - new issue
I have read articles all over the internet today. While some questions and answers are similar to my issue, none precisely cover my problem.
I am currently doing CAD work for a website where my ...
1
vote
2answers
219 views
Key out white of embedded image in Illustrator
I have an Illustrator document with a number of images embedded. The images are all illustrations on a white background. I need to remove the white so that the art behind shows through. I know there ...
1
vote
1answer
637 views
Photoshop “Save as PDF” doesn't retain the transparency
So I have this PSD with several transparent layers.
As I need to hand out the file for a professional printing, I export it through Photoshop (CS5) using the usual PDF/X-4:2008 PDF 1.4 profile to ...
1
vote
2answers
485 views
Fill an area while keeping transparency
In Paint.NET I'd like to change the color of an icon by using the fill tool, but I want to preserve the alpha-channel of the pixels. There's the same question for Photoshop, but I can't find a ...
1
vote
1answer
201 views
export icon from illustrator to Photoshop with transparency
I have an icon in illustrator but when I export to Photoshop I get white around the shadow in the image. Please advise how to remove the white. I have the icon in layers.
original ai file
...
1
vote
2answers
2k views
Spot Color Transparency and Screens in Illustrator
(Illustrator CS5)
I have a design that will be printed on a line printer. Possible are up to 7 colors, or a 4-color process with 3 line colors.
I'm currently sticking to PMS only (only 5 PMS colors ...
1
vote
3answers
138 views
How to extract the black and white components of an image to superimpose it over colored backgrounds
Say I want to create a glowing button for a website. I would like to have the possibility to dynamically change the color of that button by changing the color of it's background.
For this I need to ...
1
vote
1answer
90 views
Black-white and grayscale to alpha conversion for images
Is there an utility for converting all black-white and grayscale images from certain folder to the same images with adjusted alpha channel?
For example, for pixel (r:50, g:50, b:50, a:0) I would like ...
1
vote
1answer
303 views
How can I set the Photoshop pencil tool to auto erase to transparent?
Photoshop's pencil tool has a setting for "auto erase". When set, clicking on a pixel of the current foreground color causes it to draw over it with the background color. This is great if you're ...
1
vote
2answers
2k views
Gimp - Using an image as the transparency layer of another image
I have two images (For the sake of simplicity, Image1 and Image2). I want to use Image2 as a transparency for Image1.
How can I do that? Assume I've done little more with Gimp than play with some ...
1
vote
2answers
525 views
Advanced shadow and highlight extract with transparency
I want to blend this image dynamically over a background. So, I want to extract it as a PNG with transparency.
I photographed the ship-in-a-bottle on a surface that is roughly the colour of the ...
1
vote
2answers
263 views
Compositing transparent paths so topmost pixel wins
I'm having difficulty wording what it is I want to accomplish, but I'll try to explain. Let's start with the images below:
(a) (b)
Image (a) shows the image as I have it right now, ...
1
vote
1answer
33 views
Remove transparent when rotate 3D ps6
I have 3D image and this is several 3D layers merged in one. But when I try to rotate it layers become transparent
What I should do if I want to remove this "transparent effect"?
1
vote
1answer
95 views
Text transparent with shadow in Photoshop
Example:
In the example image is House Gothic Font 3D Shadow and House Gothic font 3d Normal. How can I make it in Photoshop? the same effect like in the example with the font on the top ...
1
vote
0answers
35 views
Flatten transparency of derivative colors
I'm creating an illustration in Ai CS3 heavily using symbols. I need to create derivative symbols, out of other symbols, with lighter colors. The transparency tool is for color seek, but as soon as I ...
0
votes
1answer
559 views
Adobe Photoshop - How to turn text into a “hole” in a layer, so I will see the background through it.
Okay, this should be super easy to do but I just can't find the way.
I have a background image with a solid colour layer on top of it, and I would like to add text on top of everything in such a way ...
0
votes
1answer
4k views
Save Illustrator as PDF with transparent background
Is there a way to export my artwork as PDF so that it has a transparent background? Something like exporting objects only... whenever I try to save my .ai as pdf, it always comes with a full white ...
