GifWeb

Transparent Images

To make the background of a GIF image transparent

1.	From the File menu, choose Open Image.  Select the image and choose OK.  The image is displayed.  GifWeb supports GIF, TIF, JPEG, BMP, DCX, PCX and several other formats

2.	Click on the background that you want to render transparent.  The color box on the left hand side of the screen displays the color that you have selected.

You may want to convert the background to a grey, black or white color (see below).

If a second 'Change to' colored button is displayed, the background consists of more than one color; like a dithered color.  Multi-colored backgrounds must be converted to a single color before you can proceed.  Please read section below.

3.	From the File menu, choose Save As and confirm.

To convert a multi-colored background

 If a second 'Change to' colored button is displayed, it means that the background of the image has several colors and you must convert the various colors to a single color.  When you click on the background, the system captures the color of the pixel you selected , plus the pixel directly to the right.  If the second pixel is of a different color, that color is displayed on the 'Change to' button.  To convert both colors to light grey, white or black, click on the  appropriate button in the 'Change to' section.  To convert the first color (selected color) to the second color (colored button), click on the colored button in the 'Change to' section.  You should test several areas of the background to pick the color you like as a background.  The correct background color is of course important only for browsers that do not support the transparent feature.  If there are more than two colors in the background, you can repeat this 'purification' process, or you can clean up the image with a paintbrush program.  Please read the section on Color Speckles below.

Dithered Colors, Color Speckles

A dithered color is a blended color made up from two solid colors.  If you enlarge a dithered color area you will see a pattern of two alternating colors.  Because the transparent background can only be ONE color, the dithered background must be converted to one of the two colors in the dithered color.  When you click on the background, the system displays the color of the 'hit' pixel.  The adjacent color (the second color of the dithering pair) is shown on the 'Change to' button.  To change the background color to that color, click on button.  To change the color to the first color in the dithering pattern, click on another area of the background until you 'hit' a pixel of the other color.  As you experiment with dithered colors, all this will make more sense to you.

If the background includes speckles of unwanted colors, you can clean it up with the following simple procedure:  Change the background to grey, white or black (see below).  Click on a color speckle and convert it to grey (for example), i.e. click on the Light Grey button.  Repeat the process for all speckles.  Then, when all speckles are cleaned up, click on the background again and save the image.  The last step is important; if you ignore it, only the last speckle will be treated as transparent.

To change the background to a white, grey or black color

It is generally recommended that the background color be light grey or white.  Some browser software do not support the transparent property and the images will then have a neutral grey  or white background, blending in with the web browser's screen background.  To make the background color grey, for example, click on the background and press the 'Grey' button.  Both the selected color and the secondary color (the color of the button in the 'Change to' section), if any, will be converted to a light grey.

To cancel the transparency

The 'transparent background' property can be cancelled.  From the Options menu, choose Cancel Transparency and confirm.  When removing the transparency property, the background color remains unchanged, only the 'transparency' flag is removed.  There is no need to save the changes.  This function is not intended to undo color changes.

Trouble Shooting

If the background is not transparent, you should re-open the saved image file (not the original file) and repeat the process.  If the problem persists, then GifWeb is not compatible with either the image file or the graphics hardware on your system.

Graphics Format Conversions

You can use GifWeb to convert graphics formats.  For example, you can use GifWeb to convert a TIFF file to a GIF file.  You can convert any supported format to other supported raster formats.  Some of the supported formats are:  BMP, GIF, PCX, DCX, PNG, TIF, JPG, WMF, PHOTO CD, etc.  Vector files (e.g. WMF) can only be converted to raster files.  If you have problems with conversions, please contact Informatik Inc. for additional filter files.

To convert a graphics file, simply open the file, then save it using the file extension name for the graphics format.

Registration

For information, please choose Registration from the About menu of GifWeb, or read the REGISTER.TXT file.

Copyright

Copyright © 1994-1997 Informatik Inc. and J. Buchmann.  All rights reserved.

Contact

Informatik Inc.

P.O. Box 868

Devon, PA 19333

USA

610.640.0339

email@informatik.com

www.informatik.com

Please also read the README.TXT file.  It contains important information.