Transparency layer on GIFFs

[gregwestwood]

Hi,

I am using Paint Shop Pro 7.04.

We have a lot of Giffs. I am decreasing the colors and reducing the file sizes and hitting save. (this is an excellent feature)

all is good except for the fact that there is a default transparency setting.

The result is that areas on images that should be black are coming out clear and looking rather daft. The attached examples are not as bad as the problem can be, but demonstrates what is happening.

I need to turn off this transparency setting within paintshop pro. I don't want any transparent areas. The problem is that I have to do this on every single image and there are thousands, I'd like the default transparency setting to be No Transparency.

Thanks to anyone who helps

[hartpaul]

Have just triesd this in 7.04 and no problems.
I copied the Flavel image you posted (which isa jpg).
loaded it into PSP7 and did Colors > Decrease Color Depth and chose two colors.
Then Save as > Save As Type = gif and then saved that .

Reloaded it into PSP and no change or variation in appearance from the original . The colours change from rainbow selection to just two Black and white and no transparency.
You may need to give more detail in the steps you are taking to get your result.
I am not seeing that Set Palette Transparency dialog box at all.

[gregwestwood]

Step 1... load in the original giff

STEP 1 original state of image

step1.gif (3.55 KiB) Viewed 3615 times

Step 2... reduce in this instance to 2 colours (although it does it at reductions to 16, 24, 32, 4, 6) by pressing SHIFT+CTRL+1 select grey values and press ok.

Step 2 colours reduced and transparency set automatically

step2.gif (1.15 KiB) Viewed 3615 times

Step 3... press SHIFT+CTRL+V to get set Palette Transparency to make the image look like it did in step 1, press save.

CTRL + V Transparency setting

Thanks for your reply.

could really do with making it default set to NOT do this transparency. You have the original file below in step 1. If only we could compare or even find a way to change the settings to not do this to

[hartpaul]

Still no luck with duplication. Your Gif seems to have no transparency at all there.

1. Loaded your gif and did Control Shift 1


Pressed OK and my color paletteonly shows 2 colors Black and White.

2. Then did Shift Control V and had an odd appearance :

This was the result after hitting OK with value 0


Strangely if I tried your value of 63 I had an error message :

[gregwestwood]

Hi yes,

It has to be between 0 and 1 because there's only two colors.

I think I got the screen shot with 63 on it from a different image i was working on, I took it just to provide the screenshot of the transparency window, so please ignore the "63" number.

You seem to repllicate my error by ther way.


I'm sure you are getting the same as me.... if you look at that result in web form (upload it to here) or view in microsoft picture manager you will see that you also have transparency...


so how does it decide to take on this transparency when there wasn't one in the original image?

[hartpaul]

Sorry still no duplication of your beige result.



1. your original gif a 256 color palette 4 KB
2. converted colours to 2 and has 2 colors did not change any transparency settings 2 KB
3. converted and saved using X2 has 2 colors 2 KB
4. your one converted your shortcuts and choosing no transparency instead of set transparency to palette entry - has 2 colors 2 KB
5. your one got confused same as 1. just saved as gif with other name
6. Converted to 2 colours but used Gif Optimiser in X2 2 colors 2 KB
7. Selected all black areas and deleted and saved 8 / 256 colors 2 KB
8. Only one to show transparency, could not do in 7 so did in X2. Selected black areas, promoted layer to raster (could not work out how to do that in 7) deleted the black which left the checkerboard = transparent. Had to save as a psp image compatible with 7 and then loaded that into 7.
It does show what is transparency.
In one to six, I cannot see any real difference. I cannot duplicate what you are getting unless I use the magic wand and actually delete black and even then I do not get that beige area you show.

[gregwestwood]

it is not beige.... the beige was the background colour in microsoft picture manager.

it is transparent. "this is how it looks, with the beige area being the transparency portion."

I can not save it as another name...

and when you pressed shift+ctrl+v you can see that you have actually recreated the problem, you just cant see the problem in paint shop pro... you need to view it in microsoft picture manager (which will show you the beige screen shot i sent.) or in a web browser that supports transparent gifs.

You wont see the beige unless its in micrsoft picture manager.

The problem is that these are going to web, and I don't realise they're half transparent until theyre live on the website. hence I'd like to not have to go into them and shift ctrl v to set no transparency.

I Would like them to default to "No transparency".

i'm sorry to repeat myself but you're not reading my post properly and you are recreating the same error without realising it, and not actually answering my question.

As regard for rasterizing the image/layer i want to reduce the number of steps, not increase them, although thanks for taking the time to try and answer.

[hartpaul]

OK The good news and bad news.
I was able to observe what your problem was by setting up a web page in Frontpage and loading the gifs to there.
I have loaded a composite image of my results.


Your question basically was 'when I use the Set Palette Transparency how can I make the default action No Transparency rather than Set Transparency to palette entry' but in a few more words.

Short answer you can't.

Back in PSP7 the setting there is not remembered.

When I tested in later version of PSP X4 using - Image > Palette > Set Palette Transparency, the setting is remembered.
I was also able to set up a script (this was introduced in PSP8) and batch process your conversions, In that way you could do this on your thousands of images in just a few minutes if they are all similar and just black and white.

Otherwise you could still use a script in interactive mode and make changes where required . You can download a 30 day trial version of PSP X6 from corel and do all your images in a day. May be time to upgrade for some of those features and you can still have and use your PSP7 on the same machine.

[gregwestwood]

yes thank you so much...

I will have to go and get a version of this. You've been great, thanks very much.

I have been using graphics programmes for 20 years but this completely threw me... It just seemed so likely there's a way you can do it.