Making backgroup of a .gif transparent

I'm still using PSP 5.0 (poor me).

I have a 256-color .gif of a round blue button, but of course the image 
itself is sqare, so the non-circle areas are white. I want to use the image 
as a "blowup" in front of a larger .gif illustrating a UI, and I want
to see 
only the round button, not the white areas of background.

I've read the meager PSP help file about transparency but couldn't find my 
answer there.

Can anyone help?

Thank you in advance,
Gay 

"Gay Alson" <galson@nsbgroup.com> wrote in message 
news:478b8092$1_1@cnews...
>
> I'm still using PSP 5.0 (poor me).
>
> I have a 256-color .gif of a round blue button, but of course the image 
> itself is sqare, so the non-circle areas are white. I want to use the 
> image as a "blowup" in front of a larger .gif illustrating a UI,
and I 
> want to see only the round button, not the white areas of background.
>
> I've read the meager PSP help file about transparency but couldn't find my

> answer there.
>
> Can anyone help?
>
> Thank you in advance,
> Gay
>
> 

Gay Alson wrote:
> 
> I'm still using PSP 5.0 (poor me).
> 
> I have a 256-color .gif of a round blue button, but of course the image
> itself is sqare, so the non-circle areas are white. I want to use the
image
> as a "blowup" in front of a larger .gif illustrating a UI, and I
want to see
> only the round button, not the white areas of background.

PSP 5 doesn't have a GIF Optimizer so defining the transparent
color is a little indirect. Start by making a copy of your GIF
file with a new name and then open the copy in PSP.

First find out about the colors in your image. Do Colors > Count
Colors Used and do Colors > Edit Palette. Now you know how many
entries there are in the GIF color palette (and can't be confused
by the appearance of any unused colors). Note the palette index
of the color that represents the background. There could be
several colors in the palette that look white or very close to
it. This may be because your background actually comprises
several very similar shades or because your background is white
but it is necessary for the image to also have highlights that
are slightly different than the background so they never become
transparent. Next do Colors > Set Palette Transparency and choose
the index of the color to set transparent. Press the Proof button
to check you have made the right choice.

An alternative approach is to open the GIF image and use the
Eyedropper tool with the right mouse to click on the background.
This places the color of the GIF background into the background
color swatch. Now you can use Set Palette Transparency and choose
the "Set the transparency value to the current background color"
option, again pressing Proof to confirm the correctness of setting.
I like the first method of setting the color since looking at
the palette can give you a clue that there are some unanticipated
weird colors in the image. However, the second method is quick
and easy and non-mathematical.

Finally, whichever way you arrived at the transparency color, just
do File > Save to overwrite the GIF file with the new one in which
a transparent color has just been defined. Now you should have a
GIF with a transparent background. You can check that by opening
the image in your browser, or by re-opening it in PSP and doing
Colors > View Palette Transparency.

Thank you, Trev, for your incredibly fast response ;~)

Maybe I'm not understanding your instructions but I still can't achieve the 
desired results. On my button .gif, I did the following:

1.  Colored the four "corners" of the image to white (that is, the
portions 
of the image surrounding the round button itself).
2.  On my colour palette, put the background colour at white (255, 255, 
255).
3.  From the Colors menu, selected Set Palette Transparency.
4.  In the Set Palette Transparency box, first tried "Set the transparency

value to the current background color" and then tried "Set the
transparency 
value to palette entry 255".
     (With either of the two options in step 4., the .gif behind the button 
image still doesn't show through.)

Sorry to be dense--am I unclear on a concept here?

Thanks for taking your time to help, I appreciate it.
Gay

"Trev" <trevbowden@dsl.pipex.cominvalid> wrote in message 
news:478b9a85$1_3@cnews...
>
> Gay Alson wrote:
>> "Gay Alson" <galson@nsbgroup.com> wrote in message
>> news:478b8092$1_1@cnews...
>>>
>>> I'm still using PSP 5.0 (poor me).
>>>
>>> I have a 256-color .gif of a round blue button, but of course the
>>> image itself is sqare, so the non-circle areas are white. I want
to
>>> use the image as a "blowup" in front of a larger .gif
illustrating a
>>> UI, and I want to see only the round button, not the white areas
of
>>> background. I've read the meager PSP help file about transparency
but 
>>> couldn't
>>> find my answer there.
>>>
>>> Can anyone help?
>>>
>>> Thank you in advance,
>>> Gay
>
> I never owned PSP 5
> But I think its a mater of using the eyedropper to select that white as 
> the background swatch/colour then using
> Then select colour menu and the set pallet transparency control and the 
> option set the transparency to the value of the current background colour.

> Now you can save as a gif
> -- 
> Trev
> You can always tell a Yorkshire man,
> But you can't tell him much.
>
> 

Both of you were very kind to offer your suggestions, but unfortunately, 
nothing is working for me.

I meticulously colored the square corners of my button image with a white 
background (truly white:  255, no variations lurking about, far as I can 
tell). I even used the eyedropper to "sweep" the white areas while I
watched 
the RGB values in the color palette, to ensure that the values stayed 
constant at 255/255/255 and that no off-white pixels were lurking about, 
masquerading as white  ;~)   (I did this verification because there are many 
white "imposters" in that palette so I wanted to make sure I tracked
down 
each and every one and colored them all a true white.)

But alas, after superimposing the button image on top of another image in my 
document, the image underneath the button still doesn't show through.

I'm baffled. All I can think is that I'm not adequately explaining what I'm 
trying to do and that, in reality, what I want isn't possible.  It occurs to 
me that perhaps the transparency functionality won't work for images used in 
a document...?

If anything amiss with either my process or my understanding is apparent to 
you, please don't hesitate to enlighten me...

Thank you again for your patience and generous sharing of knowledge.
Gay

"Spandex Rutabaga" <SpRu@agabatur.xednaps> wrote in message 
news:478BA896.28AEA3B8@agabatur.xednaps...
<snip>
> PSP 5 doesn't have a GIF Optimizer so defining the transparent
> color is a little indirect. Start by making a copy of your GIF
> file with a new name and then open the copy in PSP.
>
> First find out about the colors in your image. Do Colors > Count
> Colors Used and do Colors > Edit Palette. Now you know how many
> entries there are in the GIF color palette (and can't be confused
> by the appearance of any unused colors). Note the palette index
> of the color that represents the background. There could be
> several colors in the palette that look white or very close to
> it. This may be because your background actually comprises
> several very similar shades or because your background is white
> but it is necessary for the image to also have highlights that
> are slightly different than the background so they never become
> transparent. Next do Colors > Set Palette Transparency and choose
> the index of the color to set transparent. Press the Proof button
> to check you have made the right choice.
>
> An alternative approach is to open the GIF image and use the
> Eyedropper tool with the right mouse to click on the background.
> This places the color of the GIF background into the background
> color swatch. Now you can use Set Palette Transparency and choose
> the "Set the transparency value to the current background color"
> option, again pressing Proof to confirm the correctness of setting.
> I like the first method of setting the color since looking at
> the palette can give you a clue that there are some unanticipated
> weird colors in the image. However, the second method is quick
> and easy and non-mathematical.
>
> Finally, whichever way you arrived at the transparency color, just
> do File > Save to overwrite the GIF file with the new one in which
> a transparent color has just been defined. Now you should have a
> GIF with a transparent background. You can check that by opening
> the image in your browser, or by re-opening it in PSP and doing
> Colors > View Palette Transparency.
>