making gif backgrounds transparent

[Sara Henry]

I can't figure out how to do this. I keep getting a white background that shows up around the animated gif and obstructs other things on my webpage. I have Photoshop 6 and am using ImageReady. Please help!

Thanks,
Sara

[Colin Walls]

Does it look transparent in PS?
I assume you're using Save for Web and I'm thinking of that preview window.
If that's white, you don't have transparency. Probably because you are using the background layer, which is never transparent. Double-click on its name in the pallette to convert it to a "normal" layer, then anything you delete will leave transparency behind.

There are probably several other ways to do this. That's the way with PS.

[LenHewitt]

Sara,

If it is transparent in I/R then it will be transparent on the web - BUT
animation and transparency do not go well together and some Browsers cannot
render them correctly. I would not recommend using a transparent b/g
animated GIF - better to do that sort of thing in Flash....

[lorikalous]

Hi..I am having the same problem, but I am trying to insert into Adobe Page maker..I have the checked background in Adobe photo shop in which I thought meant that it was transparent and then I am kind of lost as to how I save it..Could some one offer me some friendly advice?

[Eric Purkalitis]

Pagemaker doesn't support transparency. You can either fake the look of transparency by combining the foreground image over the background into one image (not always possible depending on the image elements), or you can use a clipping path on an eps file (I believe you need a postscript printer for that).

Even if your background is transparent in a gif file it won't show up that way in Pagemaker.

[Didymus Thomas]

You can do a clipping path on a tif in PS. When you place it in a PageMaker file, the clipped portion will be transparent. Basically, you create a path around the object and then save it as a clipping path. For step-by-step info, enter "clipping path" in Help.

Didymus