what type saves transparency?

[WiseKran]

What type of image file saves transparency?

im using photoshop cs, and i need to save this file with it

[dragonfire999]

.png

[WiseKran]

thanks

[Draklar]

Well, gif too, but I think png is better when you use more colours.

[WiseKran]

o rly?

[Karyuu]

.png\'s allow for a smoother transparency, and in varying degrees. Gifs are blocky and sharp, mostly used for transparencies in animations.

[Kiirani]

Originally posted by Karyuu
.png\'s allow for a smoother transparency, and in varying degrees. Gifs are blocky and sharp, mostly used for transparencies in animations.

Varying degrees? *curious*

[Seytra]

Yes, it actually has semi-transparent pixels. It\'s like translucence and ranges from completely opaque to completely transparent. It also retains colour over all transparency (except fully transparent).

[Karyuu]

IE doesn\'t seem to display .pngs properly, I\'ve noticed. But here\'s an example of .png transparency:

[Seytra]

However, you should play with the compression (and other) options, because png is a lossy format. It can blur transparent pixels and opaque ones into semi-transparency, which may or may not be desirable.

[LigH]

And which * free or cheap * tools are able to create and edit transparent PNGs?

PaintShop Pro (up to 8) is not able to do so. PhotoShop would be too expensive.
__

Since when is PNG \"lossy\"?! That must depend on wrong support by specific applications.

[Seytra]

The GIMP, of course.

Edit:

Since when is PNG \"lossy\"?! That must depend on wrong support by specific applications.

Hmm, either that or wrong use of the encoder by the user, it seems. I\'ll have to check that, it seems.

[Induane]

I.E. has never supported PNG files right, although every other browser I tested does - Opera, Epiphany, Safari, Konqueror, NEtwcape, Firefox, and Mozilla.  My bet is that its because its still using the same rendering engine as they did back in windows 95, with just some new tweaks.  Hopefully they will feel the pressure of Firefox and I.E. 7 will be a good browsing expirence.  Rumor has it that it will have improved popup blocker support, tabbed browsing and actually support latest web standards like png, and the latest CSS. Thats what competition is all about - it produces better products.

[Cherppow]

Howdy

Yes, gif uses certain colour index as transparent, while png has a 8-bit channel reserved for it. This so called alpha channel provides every pixel 256 degrees of transparency. In addition gif\'s colour range is limited to 256 different colours (8-bit), while png can save 16 777 216 different colours (24-bit). Comparing Karyuu\'s avatar (gif) and the pencil (png) shows the difference. The biggest drawback with png in my opinion is the grey boxes IE users see. Also, although compressed, png\'s usually end up being larger in size than gifs, due to increased colour and transparency data.

As far as we can trust on the info on http://www.libpng.org/, png compression is completely lossless.
Gimp is good for transparency, that I agree.

Here\'s few file formats I know save transparency.

Image formats that support alpha channel(s):
-Portable Network Graphic (.png)
-Multiple-image Network Graphics (.mng)
-JPEG Network Graphics (.jng)
-Truevision TarGA image (.tga)
-Tagged Image File Format (.tif; .tiff)
-Paint Shop Pro image (.psp)
-Adobe Photoshop image (.psd)
-Gimp XCF image (.xcf)
-Corel Photopaint (.cpt)

Image formats that support keycolor transparency:
-Portable Network Graphic (.png)
-Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
-MS Windows icon (.ico)
-X PixMap image (.xpm)

My signature images are png too.