Many bloggers have Wordless Wednesday, when they just post a photo. If you know us, (and when I say us I mean me, Kris), you’ll know we’re never at a loss for words. With that in mind, Deb suggested we start Tech Tuesday to address some of those random Photoshop questions students often ask us. One item that often pops up is this: You create a nifty image in Photoshop and try to plop it into another program like PowerPoint (or a greeting card maker program). You get your image, all right, but it’s surrounded by a white square. What the heck?!
Our students tell us that they deleted the background in Photoshop and have a transparent background (as shown with the gray and white checkerboard – Photoshop speak for clear). They saved it “for web” (some versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements use the terminology “save for web and other devices”). They chose a .gif format. So why does that darn image show up in another program with a white background?!?! We can hear those students now, screaming “#$@%!#.”
Okay, here’s the secret . . .
Our students have done almost everything right: deleted the background in Photoshop (allowing them to see the gray and white checkerboard) and used “save for web.” What you need to remember is to choose the .gif file format (first green arrow), but the most important thing is to make sure you check “Transparency” (second green arrow). Notice the background changes from white to the gray and white checkerboard. Now when you click the Save button at the bottom of this dialog box, you will actually be saving a transparent gif.
You’re probably saying that both transparent images look the same in photoshop, so how do you know the difference? Well, you have to remember to save the image as a .gif and check that transparency box. That’s how you’ll know. And most non-Adobe programs don’t allow you to insert a Photoshop .psd file, so the .psd file won’t be listed as one of your images to insert.
By the way, if you’re really curious, we had to make a fake checkerboard so that you would know what we were talking about, because when we used the “real” transparent .gif, it just looked like it was on the white background of the blog’s photo paper!
5 responses to “Tech Tuesday: Keeping Transparent Images Transparent”
Thanks a million for this “Tech-Shot”. In spite of taking a couple of PhotoShop classes, I still have “brain freeze” when I try to create .gif images. This is probably because I don’t do it every day. Now I’ll have a quick, easy to understand reference to rely on. Thanks again and keep on “truckin’”.
BroM
Glad to hear you like the post. It’s probably the #1 Photoshop question we get. Make sure you bookmark this page for even easier access!
Tech Tues-great idea!
Tech Tuesday is a fabulous idea – thanks for introducing them!
You’re welcome! Email us with your own questions, and we’ll try to answer them in this column!