Character Image Background transparency question

[SS_Spike]

I have a problem with my character Images. I cant get the background of the image to be transparent so the background image is showing. I am using PNG format I just have no experience with the format, so... please and thank you

Also, Id like to know what progams you all use to draw you're character images...

thanks from a noob...

[KimiYoriBaka]

go into gimp or photoshop or something of the like, use duplicate layer to make a copy of your image that isn't considered "background". Then delete the background layer and erase the unwanted parts. There's another way that uses the "magic wand" tool, but it amounts to about the same thing. Oh, and when erasing the unwanted parts, you can use "select by color" combined with "clear" or "cut" to get rid of them quickly, as long as you fill them all in with a random color first (specifically one that isn't used anywhere else in the image, as the normal white is usually also in the eyes).

[Xino]

Dstarboy helped me out with a similar problem.

IF you use GIMP. Load your image and follow these steps. (If you don't, you can always download it for free if you want)

-Use the fuzzy select tool.
-Select the white background.
-Hold Ctrl+Shift and select any parts that didn't highlight with the first click.
-Right click the image and go to "Select" and then "Invert" (This should highlight the whole image you want to keep)
-Ctrl+X
-Make a new layer and Ctrl+V
-Delete the original layer and erase any white outlines left behind!

Also, everyone I've talked to seem prefer ".png"s.

[dstarsboy]

Yeah, really wierd how I couldn't just select the background in gimp and delete it, the only way I could make it transparent is to cut and paste the non-background portion onto a new layer. If anyone knows how to simply delete the background that would save quite a few steps.

Also, png is one of the best lossless image formats that supports transparencies. jpg and bmp do not support it. Gif does but I believe it's lossy.

[lunasspecto]

As far as I know, GIF is actually lossless, but supports a very limited color palette.

[SS_Spike]

Thanks for the help guys. It made things a helluva lot smoother getting started...

[chronoluminaire]

Yeah, really wierd how I couldn't just select the background in gimp and delete it, the only way I could make it transparent is to cut and paste the non-background portion onto a new layer. If anyone knows how to simply delete the background that would save quite a few steps.

This is probably because the GIMP image didn't have an alpha (transparency) channel.

If you go Image->Transparency->Add Alpha Channel, then when you cut away the background, it should turn to the checkered grey that indicates transparent.

[killdream]

Dstarboy helped me out with a similar problem.

IF you use GIMP. Load your image and follow these steps. (If you don't, you can always download it for free if you want)

-Use the fuzzy select tool.
-Select the white background.
-Hold Ctrl+Shift and select any parts that didn't highlight with the first click.
-Right click the image and go to "Select" and then "Invert" (This should highlight the whole image you want to keep)
-Ctrl+X
-Make a new layer and Ctrl+V
-Delete the original layer and erase any white outlines left behind!

Also, everyone I've talked to seem prefer ".png"s.

I personally prefer to use masks instead of going all select/delete/erase.

And for PNGs, they're the only format supported by Ren'Py that has an alpha-channel (GIF uses color-key, what means that a pixel is transparent or not, they can't be semi-transparent).