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How to make transparent background for a gif?

olds

Elite Member
Update 7/28/07

How do you edit/change transparencies in GIMP?
I tried the alpha channel route but it is grayed out.
http://members.home.nl/m.weisbeek/gimp/#transp




Any free software?
How do you tell if it already has a transparent background?
image

Update
I got GIMP running.
How do you make a background transparent?
I open a different animated gif, right click it and select "Layer" and then "Transparency" but "Add Alpha Channel" is grayed out.

Tutorial I am using.
 
Free software? Hmm, if you have MS Office, the drawing tools will let make a background transparent on certain images for use within the apps, i.e. Powerpoint, Word, Excel, etc. I don't know however if those are exportable to use elsewhere. You might check MS Paint or whatever comes w/ Windows.

I use Photoshop to create transparent gifs. But of course, it's far from free.

Edit: I checked the file in Photoshop and it is transparent already.
 
Originally posted by: fredhe12
Free software? Hmm, if you have MS Office, the drawing tools will let make a background transparent on certain images for use within the apps, i.e. Powerpoint, Word, Excel, etc. I don't know however if those are exportable to use elsewhere. You might check MS Paint or whatever comes w/ Windows.

I use Photoshop to create transparent gifs. But of course, it's far from free.

Edit: I checked the file in Photoshop and it is transparent already.

I have Photoshop 5 around somewhere. Thanks for checking.


Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX
The GIMP.

I'll check it out, thanks.
 
Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX
The GIMP.

Agreed, I made a transparent background for a GIF, it worked for what I wanted it to do. I found a tutorial for it on the GIMP boards that helped me out.
 
One of the easy ways to check whether an image have transparent background or not is to create an HTML file with background of some color (eg: black) and include the image there.

Example:
<html><head><title>Hello World!</title></head><body style="background:#000;">
<img src="your_image.gif">
</body></html>

As for free software, you can try gimp (as others have mentioned).
 
Originally posted by: KB
My fav free image editor, Paint.Net, can do it: http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html

Edit: Then I looked at it... it is an animated gif so Paint.Net can't do it.

Ya, I have paint.net and I downloaded a plug in that lets you set transparency. It didn't work probably as paint.net doesn't do animated gifs.

Also GIMP doesn't seem to want to install to Vista.
 
I would recommend the old MS Office freebie MS Photo Editor. On Office 2000 install it's x'd by default but you can go back to the disk and add it. If you are Office 2003 you lost it but see http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817095.

Open GIF, click the toolbar button that looks like a fat arow pointing southwest, select color to transparent (usually white), save your transparent gif. Wallah.

The transparency is usually indicated by slanted lines or dots across the background.
 
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