How to make transparent background for a gif?

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olds

olds

Elite Member
Mar 3, 2000
50,097
771
126
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.
 
F

fredhe12

Senior member
Apr 6, 2006
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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.
 
olds

olds

Elite Member
Mar 3, 2000
50,097
771
126
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.
Click to expand...

I have Photoshop 5 around somewhere. Thanks for checking.


Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX
The GIMP.
Click to expand...

I'll check it out, thanks.
 
B

benzylic

Golden Member
Jun 12, 2006
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Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX
The GIMP.
Click to expand...

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.
 
S

stndn

Golden Member
Mar 10, 2001
1,886
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0
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).
 
olds

olds

Elite Member
Mar 3, 2000
50,097
771
126
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
M

moulin1

Junior Member
Sep 6, 2007
10
0
0
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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