One of those things that here in 2009 you would think be an absolute breeze but had turned into an all day nightmare.

I have a black logo with a white background and want to lose the white background so I can lay my logo over anything.

So, after spending hours on this, I discovered the magic wand in Paint.net and it does a very good job as long as I save it to PNG. I get a nice clean image on a transparent background.

WhenI save to GIF, it looks like absolute crap. A lot of jagged edges and bits of white on the outline -- no comparison to the PNG.

AND NOW -- I find after viewing the PNG, it isn't transparent on the web but has a gray background.

HOLY CRAP.

Is there any simple way, maybe even some software specifically designed to take care of this?

Any ideas?

Do you NOT use transparent PNG for web pages?
You must use transparent GIF?

Mike Ring

Attache your logo here and I will make it into a transparent gif for you and ten attach it here again for you to use.

ad99wd:)

What CC product are you using?

This is only the case when viewing such pages with IE 6. Other browsers will show the png image correctly. There are hacks which, in certain cases, can be used to make IE 6 display the png correctly. Some designers use conditional coding to use gifs with IE and pngs with all other browsers.



As far as the jaggy gif image goes, more sophisticated software such as Photoshop Elements and Fireworks and maybe even GIMP allow you to specify a "matte" color.

Say you want blue text with a transparent background which you will then use on your page which has a black background. If the matte color is set to black, the final gif text will have nice, smooth edges when viewed on your page with a black background.

Well, that explains it. I'm using Visual site designer and also I have a program called webpage maker that I really like.

I decided to do what I need as a seperate project and save it as a jpeg, rather than try and lay the logo over a background.

Should have thought of that.

Actually, I'd rather save it as a PNG (is it me or do I see much better resolution with this format?) (I'm not a professional designer, just an average joe).

If there isn't anything transparent involved, I would imagine that PNG will display fine in any browser?....including IE 6?

What is the preferred format (trend) for graphics?

JPEG for photos, right?.....what for graphics?


My logo is actually a true type font, so I have to print out the project > scan it > and save as.

This is a nice forum....I'm working on a new site right now so I'll be back...there are some issues I always wanted to learn about.

It's months after you asked the question, but I'd select the black text with the magic wand (I think that's the tool that does this) in Photoshop, copy it and then paste it in a new PS file (large enough to hold all parts of the logo) set to have a transparent, white, or whatever you wish background. You might have to grab bits of your logo (like one letter) at a time. I'd work with the PSD or PNG when selecting all of the black text or image.

You should also be able to select the background and then fill it in (replace it) with white.

Worst case, use the eraser tool in Photoshop to get rid of the gray background. Should become transparent upon erasing. Then save your file as a PNG if you want transparent. JPG if you want white. But PNG renders the text clearer. So if you want a PNG with white background, add the color before you save.