Transparency

When it comes to menus, windows, etc. is there a way to change the trasparent color from white to black?

50B3R K3NNy

Nope. Sorry; this is a part of the OS, and I'm not sure you could do it even if you coded from scratch.

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nope. but: (doing this photoshop for dummies style so everyone can profit)

1-Use Photoshop. If I see Paint Shop Pro mentioned one more time I'm going to scream.

2-make a duplicate layer of your graphic. make a layer beneath that, wich you fill with black.
In the layers window click on the eye in front of the original layer to make the original invisible, and do a Layers>Merge Visible (in the menu) .Do a Image>Adjust>Desaturate (in the menu)on the new layer. now work on this layer.

the black parts willl eventually be invisble. The white parts will be 100% visible. Grey parts will be in between, depending on how dark they are.

3-select the layer (apple-a), then cut it (apple-x). Drag the now empty layer to the trashcan icon at the bottom of the layers window.

4-Select the original graphic. Click on the leftmost button in the layers window to make it visible again. Click on the 'grey square with circle cutout' button on the bottom of the layers window. You have now made a Alpha channel.

** There are generally two types of pixel images - the four colour graphix used for printing, called CMYK and the three colour graphix used for computer screens, called RGB.
Each RGB colour (red green blue) is in a different channel. Some RGB formats can have a added channel that indicates tranlucency. Such a channel is called an Alpha channel. **

5-Switch the layers window to the channels window, either by clicking on the tab on the top, or by Windows>Channels (in the menu)
Click on the eyes before the blue, Red and Green layers, to make those invisible.
Make the alpha channel visible. Click in the little rectangle at the right that indicates the alpha channel.
Paste the cutout you made (apple-v). Make all layers visible, then the alpha layer invisible.

6-Go to the layers window and click on the alpha channel rectangel (to the right), hold th emousebutton down, and drag the rectangle to the trashcan. Photoshop will ask 'apply the mask to the layer before removing'. Click on apply.

7-Save the image as a png.

It should now work. The only image I've noticed that does not have alpha transparency is the Mapinterface.

ps- I know there are other ways of doing this. If you know them, use them. If you don't, you will get to know them. Practice makes perfect

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(This message has been edited by -LethaLGraphiX- (edited 08-05-2002).)

Lethal

thanx for the tip but i seem to have a problem when trying to save as .png

im using photoshop 5.5

but when im ready to save it wont allow .png as the file type

what type of file should i start with?

any help would be great

~stray

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I looked this up yesterday, and it seams 5.5 has problems with transparency indeed.
(url="http://"http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pngdefg/chapter/ch04.html")Here(/url) you can find a tutorial that teaches to add transparency in photoshop 5.0
"1.Choose File --> Save a Copy..., which pops up the usual file dialog box.
2. Pick an appropriate directory and filename for the image, choose PNG as the format, and make certain the Exclude Alpha Channels checkbox is not checked.
3. Click the OK button, which triggers yet another dialog box.
4. Optionally create an interlaced PNG by selecting Adam7 as the interlacing type, and make sure the filter type is Adaptive for grayscale or truecolor images.
5. Click the OK button."

let me know if this works, okay?

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(This message has been edited by -LethaLGraphiX- (edited 08-16-2002).)

Er, I use Photoshop 5.5, and I've never had any problems with using to make transparent PNGs (well, aside from user error...)

In order to save as PNG you have to flatten the image (no layers) or it won't appear in the "Save As..." dialog. Alternately, you can use "Save a Copy..." which will allow you to include flattening the image as part of the save process and will thus permit the use of PNG format.

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Flattening? Oh...so that's what you can do instead of saving it as a copy! Cool, thanks Glenn!

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