making background transparent

[bnk1953]

Adding drop shadow to a picture I want to put on a website. I can get the "white" background to transparent in elements. Go to save for web - and there is the white border/background still there when I go to put on web. Is this a JPEG/GIFF situation. Any suggestions on how to make it so that background on the website shows through immediately under the picture versus having a white border along with the drop shadow. So in summary - looking for a way to have a picture w/ drop shadow w/ underlying website color showing thru the white border that I got when I first did the drop shadow. Hope this makes sense.

[Wendy]

Hi there ...

When you save as a jpg then that is what happens ... jpgs just don't support transparency.

Try saving it as a gif ... not sure if it will work or not but I think that it will :)


Wendy

[Karin Sue]

If it needs to be a jpeg for image quality/size issues, try adding a background in elements that matches the background from the website.

[willpresley]

GIF does support transparency and should work fine for most web pages.

[Wendy]

Hi Will ...

Thanks for that ... I wasn't sure as I have never done any webpages :)


Wendy

[bnk1953]

Thanks all for your replies. Probably will try to do matchup of background as gif doesn't do a very good job of drop shadow. This is for a professional photographer's site who wants it to be representative of his work. He is into 4X6 work - 4 feet by 6 feet and beyond - usually b&w but sometimes color.

[Wendy]

Wow ... that is big!!


Wendy

[mrod]

Will, does PNG also support transparency? I seem to remember reading that does, but I was playing around with that yesterday, and couldn't get it to work.

Mike

[Wendy]

Hi Mike ...

I just check out png and it does support transparency ... to check it out I:

Opened a jpg and created a new layer below it
Used the marquee tool to make a selection
Edit>Delete
Then I did save for web but changed the format to png 8
The image saved as a single layer with a transparent portion.

hope this helps :)
Wendy

[Jodi Frye]

bnk, you also have the option while saving in Gif w/transparency to add a matt color which helps alot when the image has a shadow. Choosing the matt color that most closely resembles the background of your webpage should do the trick.

[bnk1953]

Can you use png's on web sites - or is that jpeg and gif territory. I have thought about the background and adding - the problem is that the website is part of a bigger website that is controlled by a state agency (at least its not federal :lol: ) so getting access to their sometimes bazaar backgrounds is a little hard.
~bruce.

[Karin Sue]

I think most web browsers support png.

How about taking a screen shot of a page that contains the background, then you could play with it in elements.