Transparent background BMP's

[diaftia]

I am racking my brain here. I am using Photoshop CS3 and its a tool that I have not exactly mastered. I have searched and all I have found is that I need to use an alpha mask. Problem is more searching doesnt seem to lead me to a way to do this. I have a new layer, I have moved it down below my existing one, and I either get a white background or no image at all. I need to make the background of my image transparent. What is the best way to go about doing this in PS-CS3? If I open the file back up after saving it should show up with a checkerboard background correct?

 

Thanks,

 

Alex

[ill.die.trying]

I am racking my brain here. I am using Photoshop CS3 and its a tool that I have not exactly mastered. I have searched and all I have found is that I need to use an alpha mask. Problem is more searching doesnt seem to lead me to a way to do this. I have a new layer, I have moved it down below my existing one, and I either get a white background or no image at all. I need to make the background of my image transparent. What is the best way to go about doing this in PS-CS3? If I open the file back up after saving it should show up with a checkerboard background correct?

 

Thanks,

 

Alex

 

if the file has a checked background it would show as black or white or may not even show on screen, the best way is to have that checkered part masked

[MikeTheApeman]

To make a transparent bitmap you must make sure that the bitmap has been converted to Indexed 256 colour. 24bit Bitmaps will not make a transparent image. Make sure that pixel (0,0) in the top left most part of thepicture has the colour you want to be transparent.

 

If you have a background colour that you do not want to be transparent put another colour at pixel (0,0), preferably 1 that doesn't appear in the rest of the image. Someimage allow you to add a colour to the palette if needed.

 

In some cases setting colour 0 in the colour index also can help.

[diaftia]

To make a transparent bitmap you must make sure that the bitmap has been converted to Indexed 256 colour. 24bit Bitmaps will not make a transparent image. Make sure that pixel (0,0) in the top left most part of thepicture has the colour you want to be transparent.

 

If you have a background colour that you do not want to be transparent put another colour at pixel (0,0), preferably 1 that doesn't appear in the rest of the image. Someimage allow you to add a colour to the palette if needed.

 

In some cases setting colour 0 in the colour index also can help.

 

Wow, I need to take a photoshop class apparently as this is all a foreign language to me.

 

When I go to image/mode indexed color is grayed out. And when I try to go new image, bitmap it wont let me create a transparent background. I guess this is just going to require a lot of back and fourth trial and error.

[diaftia]

Ah! I got it! I had to create the image with a transparent background. Then convert the main layer to a background layer. Once I did that I went into the channels tab and created a new channel as an Alpha layer. They key was to do the edits I needed on that layer which then started to show in the avic.