

When done, click in the background area of the image 1:Ĥ. You may need to adjust the tolerance value (it depends on your image).

Be sure to specify Tolerance=10, Anti-aliased and Contiguous in the selection options (dialog box on top, under the menu). If the image background has a solid color (white in our example), select the Magic Wand Tool (W) or click in the toolbox. Now select the background area of the image (the area you wish to remove).

If the file is not in RGB format (16.8 M colors), convert it: Choose Image/Mode/RGB Color.ģ. You can download the original image we use in this tutorial here: logo.bmp (right-click and choose Save Target As).Ģ. The file open in a separate document window. See Photoshop help to read more.Ĭreate a Transparent Image using Adobe Photoshopġ. Advanced techniques also exist to work with alpha channel. We'll see here one of the simplest way to proceed: Extrude a part of the image and remove the existing background. Photoshop contains powerful Alpha Channel manipulation features. We'll learn how to create a transparent image with Alpha Channel from a standard image. The grey checkboard-like pattern shows the transparency of the image. The result produces a 32 BPP (Bit Per Pixel) transparent image. In the illustration below you see how the alpha channel is applied to the original image to remove (visually) the orange gradient background. The resulting image is called RGBA (RGB+A, A means alpha channel). Alpha channels are usually used with 16.8M color RGB images. For example, 50 percent gray allows for 50 percent visibility. The level of gray in between determines the level of visibility. White acts as the visible area black acts as the transparent area (you see the background behind the image when displayed). The alpha channel is an 8-bit channel, which means it has 256 levels of gray from 0 (black) to 255 (white). If you want to create a nice icon (using Axialis IconWorkshop) or a screensaver with smooth sprites (using Axialis Professional Screen Saver Producer) we recommend you to use images with Alpha channel.Īlpha channels are masks through which you can display images. PNG, BMP and PSD file format actually support alpha channel.
