Background transparent (GIMP)

**♔Icebear77♔** · October 29, 2009, 09:06 AM

Hello,

i want make an avatar with an transparent background. How can i do that? I tried several thins (like backgroundlayer = transparent aso.) but nothing works...

I have an alfa-channel
I changed the color for the transparency into white
Its an PNG-file...

What do i wrong?

Thanks for help...

Greetz
Ice

**abbews** · October 29, 2009, 09:30 AM

Your'e avatar is transparent? Saving an image without bg as .png Will make it transparent

**AlexTheGood** · October 29, 2009, 09:41 AM

Hello there,

First of all, go to Image -> Mode and select "RGB Color". Then Unlock your background layer and call it whatever you want.

So if your avatar has a background and you want to remove it then you can make the following ways (with PS):
1) Use the "Eraser Tool" [It's the 11th of the tools list (when you use CS4)].
2) Select with "Lasso Tool" or "Magic Wand Tool" the background and then press "Delete" on your keyboard (Must have unlocked the layer first).
3) Use the "Pen Tool" and click around the part you wan't to keep (let's say if you have a wolf, click several times around the wolf to make the same shape with the lines), then connect the last anchor with the first, and if you did that click Right-Click and "Make selection", click Ok and you will have your shape selected. Go Select -> Inverse, and then you will have selected the outside of the shape you want. So now you can press "Delete" on your keyboard.

No3 is a bit confusing, and the way I explained it is more hard to understand I guess

If you deleted the background, save it as a PNG.

Hope I helped...

**♔Icebear77♔** · October 29, 2009, 09:52 AM

Originally Posted by abbews

Your'e avatar is transparent? Saving an image without bg as .png Will make it transparent

Sorry i dont understand the part "without bg as png"... what does bg means?

@ Alex
its not hard to understand because i tried it several time like you wrote and it does not work...

Maybe i havent wrote clear enough what i mean. I want an avantar (polarbear) without any colors around... that it shows only the polarbear with the background from the forum... hope you understand me :-)

**Raglan** · October 29, 2009, 09:57 AM

he means delete the background (bg) to alpha (it will show that grey checkerboard) and then instead of saving it as a jpg save in with the file ending .png

(ie polarbear.png)

in Gimp sometimes you need to turn the alpha on, (if when you delete something and get white instead of the checkerboard) to turn on go to 'layer' 'transparency' and then choose 'add alpha channel'

**♔Icebear77♔** · October 29, 2009, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by Raglan

he means delete the background (bg) to alpha (it will show that grey checkerboard) and then instead of saving it as a jpg save in with the file ending .png

(ie polarbear.png)

in Gimp sometimes you need to turn the alpha on, (if when you delete something and get white instead of the checkerboard) to turn on go to 'layer' 'transparency' and then choose 'add alpha channel'

I have to show you a screen, because that the way i do it and it does not work (obviously i make something wrong).

**Raglan** · October 29, 2009, 10:46 AM

yeah thats perfect so far, now just save it as a png like this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

because your saving as a jpeg (or jpg or something simular) it can't handle transparancy, so it colours the transparent area's white instead

**♔Icebear77♔** · October 29, 2009, 12:12 PM

Thats the problem. i saved this pic as a png-file, but i have still a white background when i want to use it as my avatar in this forum. I dont get the forum-background...

**Raglan** · October 29, 2009, 12:40 PM

okay i know whats going wrong, when saving it as png it should come up with a box asking if you want to flatten image, or merge visiable layers.

you need to choose merge visiable layers else it will replace the transparancy with white