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I have been trying to download photos/pictures from the internet and edit them, but whenever I do it the transparent background becomes white. I have tried copy/pasting, which never works. I tried downloading as a PNG and opening it in Photoshop, which works sometimes, but usually does not. I've tried downloading it, copying the preview and pasting that into Photoshop, but that does't work either. All the pictures are transparent in my browser (I use chrome) but when I download them they often don't maintain their transparency. I know there is a post on this, but none of the answers helped. I am on mac.

Taken on Chrome, you can see the checkered background which indicates transparency.

Opened with Photoshop, you can see the white background is added, not a transparent one.

The first photo shows the image on Chrome, with the transparent background. The second is it in Photoshop, with a white background.

In Google Images setting, I change the background to "transparent" before searching, meaning all the images that come as a result of the search have transparent backgrounds. By searching specifically transparent images, and seeing the checkered background, I am sure the images are transparent. Also, it's a PNG, which always have the transparent background. If it were a JPEG, it would have a white background.

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    This case is interesting. Give us a screenshot of one transparent image in your Chrome and specify very carefully and detailed, how you became sure that it's transparent in Chrome, but not after downloading.
    – user82991
    Jun 11, 2017 at 19:31
  • Not all PNG images have transparency. It depends how the image was saved. Do you have the direct URL to the original PNG image so that we can check it?
    – Billy Kerr
    Jun 11, 2017 at 21:27
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    @BillyKerr This is happening to many images, but here is the diamond that I used in the post, I think this link will work, google.com/…:
    – David
    Jun 11, 2017 at 21:31
  • OK. I'm going to add an answer now.
    – Billy Kerr
    Jun 11, 2017 at 21:36

1 Answer 1

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You need to click the View Image button in google images to get to the actual png file itself. The direct URL to the file is here - this png is definitely transparent. I checked in Photoshop.

Here's the screenshot enter image description here

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  • Note that recent versions of Photoshop CC have the "Artboards" option enabled by default which does not show the Transparency grid at all. You need to break-out of Artboard mode to see transparency again. I don't know why Adobe made this the default setting.
    – Dai
    Jun 12, 2017 at 1:41
  • @Dai - the Artboard default setting only applies if you start with one of the templates in Web or Mobile sections when creating a new document. Other document types have the Artboard option unchecked by default. Opening a PNG doesn't default to artboards either, at least not in PS CC 2017. My screenshot was in CS4, but CC has the same behaviour for opening PNGs.
    – Billy Kerr
    Jun 16, 2017 at 11:17

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