PSP 2018. Transparency is gone while saving to GIF.

[nice2meetyou]

Hey,

Am using PSP 2018. I am not a techie but have a good experience in PSP since I use it for many years. Now I am weird about TRANSPARENCY.

Have created a .pspimage containing transparent objects (as I see the patterned background with white and grey squares).
Q1: Is there a way in the tool to query that my file is REALLY transparent?

Then I save the file as .GIF. When reloading the GIF the transparent background is gone; became solid white.
Q2: What am I doing wrong?

My alternate try was to create an new file, type = GIF, checkmarked the field "Transparent". I paste part of my graphic into the new and empty file and see that the background still looks transparent. Now I save my file as GIF; then reload it to see if the transparency remained. No, it's gone - the background became solid white.
Q3: Can't imagine that there is an error in the tool - I am probably having some lack of knowledge. What does the trick?

Assistance highly appreciated. Thank you.

[migf1]

There are 2 kinds of transparency: Alpha Channel and Indexed

Indexed is for palette based images, usually up to 256 colors like .GIF images, and it is simply 1 of those colors marked as transparent.

When you save your pspimage as gif, try doing it from the GIF exporter, under: File -> Export -> GIF Optimizer

In the Transparency tab of that dialog box, enable either "Existing Image or Layer Transparency" if your image already contains transparent areas, or "Areas that match this color" and then use the Dropper thumbnail next to it, to sample 1 color of your image to be marked as transparent.

See this screen-shot: http://prntscr.com/10hwj50

PS. If you are not after gif animation, exporting as PNG is a superior format when it comes to transparency, since it uses the Alpha Channel which is more flexible regarding transparency (it allows semi-transparent areas, while Indexed is either full transparent or full opaque)

[nice2meetyou]

Thank you - that did the trick.

Now, with your assistance, I also found it in the Corel online help. Will try to make s.th. out of it.

[migf1]

Glad it helped!

EDIT: One area you can spot a big difference between indexed and alpha-channel transparency is around the edges of the subject. With indexed transparency they should be very jagged, cause we can't have faded transparency (it's either full transparent or full opaque).