Author: Mark Monciardini
From the Website: www.designsbymark.com
© Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2000.
Mark Monciardini All Rights Reserved.
Transparent GIFs
For Photoshop 4.0 or 5.0
Go to File>New and make a new image, 100x100 Pixels or a size
that works for you. Make sure to check where it says "Transparent
Background", the click OK.
Use the type tool and make a letter or any other image you need to be
transparent from the background.
Select>All. Now copy: Edit>Copy. Close the image by pressing
Ctrl.-W (Mac: Command-W).
Make a new image by holding down Ctrl.-N (Mac: Command-N).
When the New Image dialog appears click OK. ( Note: For older
Photoshop versions you may need to add a few more pixels to the
Width and Height of the image to prevent the graphic from being cut off.
You will need to do this before you click OK, for versions 4 and 5 you
should be ok.
Now Edit>Paste. Ok now we have easily cropped away any vertical or
horizontal space with in the letter it self.
Go to File>Export>GIF98a Export. You will see the Export Dialog.
The pallet will default to Exact, well this can look really jagged on the
edges of our transparent image, press preview and you ll see what I
mean. So now lets increase the color by choosing "Adaptive". We now
have control on how many colors we want in the image. For my letter I
choose 16 from the Colors pop down menu.
Now where it says "Transparency Index Color" ( which is default to
gray ), Click on this and choose the color that matches your web page
background the closest and click OK. Now click OK in the GIF Export
Options. Now the Saving Dialog should appear. Name the image and
save it to your hardrive.
Now just go back to your web page program and load the image on
your page.