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MeganBryar

Transparent backgrounds

by
Possibly got it sussed, thanks guys and girls!

First world problems.

An artist I like does lovely commissions with a lovely transparent border, and yet when I try to post them, or set them as a wallpaper, the transparency just doesn't work and all I get is a black or grey border around the image. It makes me a sad bunny.

If anyone has any advice for someone who isn't good at, well, anything, really, please do. (But I don't have Photoshop and I'm not paying $20 a month for it.)

Edit: Thanks folks! I'm still no closer to my goal of world domina... I mean, figuring this thing out, but it was kind of you to offer ideas, and I've got a few new things I can try. And thank you for not laughing at a poor, dumb bunny.
Viewed: 49 times
Added: 1 year, 9 months ago
 
28 Comments on this Journal
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Doubleofox
Doubleofox
1 year, 9 months ago
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Do you have an example for a fellow non artist to see?
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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Like here: https://inkbunny.net/s/2782827

Where there's grey, there's supposed to be a transparent border instead. The grey is the same color as the background for my image viewer, which apparently it saves to the file I guess? Despite my not doing anything other than downloading the file from my e-mail then posting it.
Doubleofox
Doubleofox
1 year, 9 months ago
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I am not an artist, but I had no luck on my free Linux tools! I asked a friends but you have many others here. It may be the file itself or wasn't made to be actually transparent...
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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Yeah, same. Thanks for trying, though!
Foxy101
Foxy101
1 year, 9 months ago
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Are the images of the png format?
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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They are, yes. I don't change file formats, just download things.
Foxy101
Foxy101
1 year, 9 months ago
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I think either the artist isn't exporting it with the transparency or something is happening between how you download and upload it. I was able to take that image you referenced above, deleted the gray bg to make transparent pixels and saved it as a new png. Uploaded it to inkbunny as a hidden submission and the background is transparent with the white showing through.

For now if you want to replicate it you can use photopea which is basically photoshop in the browser and is free. Just magic wand the area you want to be transparent and hit delete. Once you see the checkerboard everywhere the transparency should be just file>export as>gif
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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I think something must be happening in between, since if I just view the image in my e-mail without downloading, I get the checkerboard pattern, and it's only after I download it that things get funky. But thanks. That might work to fix it at least.
Foxy101
Foxy101
1 year, 9 months ago
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In that case, I would suggest downloading it in different ways then. Depending on the email box they may have a download button, right clicking on the image when it's being previewed to save as, or right click > open image in new tab then right click > save as. Sometimes different types of saving to your computer could flatten the image.
PlaneshifterLair
PlaneshifterLair
1 year, 9 months ago
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Format, and where're you posting them?
Almost all my stuff has transparent border, so I know it works. Can help check them if you need me to, I work them on Sai =P
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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.png and I'm posting them here and on FA. I know the transparency should work since it does when the artist posts them, and all I do is download. I don't create the files, just save them.
PlaneshifterLair
PlaneshifterLair
1 year, 9 months ago
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FA has the habit of resizing and killing formats.
IB should have no issue? Unless the pics are too big, maybe?
Do you use Discord? You could send me one for me to check on Sai if the transparency is still there~
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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Yeah, I normally wait for her to post first on FA then just use that. I just tried it over there to see what would happen. Trying different things before leaping to conclusions, and all.

I don't have Discord, I'm afraid, but thanks for the offer! If it comes down to it, I'll just wait for her to post. It would be nice to figure it out, but it's not vital.
PlaneshifterLair
PlaneshifterLair
1 year, 9 months ago
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Still weird, if you see it transparent on FA, but then it loses the transparency when saving it?
Shouldn't happen like that...
whitepawrolls
whitepawrolls
1 year, 9 months ago
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Edited 1 year, 9 months ago by Owner
Sometimes with transparent backgrounds if your not careful you can save them incorrectly and strip out the transparency. I run into this a bunch with second life. I noticed you say your getting them threw email like this. maybe your email is converting them without you knowing.
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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I don't know how you'd tell. But I normally get e-mail through gmail, so I forwarded the file to my ancient Hotmail account and got the same results. Which doesn't prove they don't both do the same thing, of course.
whitepawrolls
whitepawrolls
1 year, 9 months ago
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Well if your forwarding it from one email to another that means its already gone threw the process. If you can get your friend to send them to you zipped or something. If gmail is indeed converting them having them in a compressed file should prevent it.
LemmyNiscuit
LemmyNiscuit
1 year, 9 months ago
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Edited 1 year, 9 months ago by Owner
I would just use GIMP and add a transparent layer underneath and then fill it with whatever color I want.

GIMP is basically freeware photoshop, it's nice for doing stuff like that. You might also be able to use Irfanview if that's still a thing. I think there is a Windows download.
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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I've got Irfanview actually. It's my primary image viewer. I might try GIMP, though, thanks.

For that matter, I could just try setting the background color on Irfanview to match my desktop color, but that doesn't solve the issue when posting it to IB. Then it'd just have a purple square around it.
LemmyNiscuit
LemmyNiscuit
1 year, 9 months ago
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Edited 1 year, 9 months ago by Owner
IB's image renderer tries to render a drop-shadow for transparent pics which can get funky, you'd have to do something similar to prevent that. You could color-drop IB's standard bg color for image rendering to prevent that.
Killereye
Killereye
1 year, 9 months ago
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I tried Irfanview too, and my (less then a minute long) experiment yielded mixed results.
I'll note you about it, Bunbun! ~☺
TobyBaggins
TobyBaggins
1 year, 9 months ago
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Edited 1 year, 9 months ago by Owner
I am no expert but have dabbled a little with photoshop. The issue with transparent layers is they can only be changed in a photo editor like Photoshop or Gimp.  (Never used Gimp myself, but it is suppose to be as powerful as photoshop from all I heard). What is more is that you have to have the original PSD file so you can access the layers. If the image was saved as a PNG, JPG or so on, those layers are gone as the image is just that an image. Like in your example you gave https://inkbunny.net/s/2782827 The grey in the background is just that, this image was saved originally with a grey background.


If it had a Transparent backgrounds the grey would not show up when I open it in photoshop. A way that you can test this yourself is to drop the file into Discord or Telegram Any images with a Transparent background dropped into those apps will show the background of the app.

So the only way to remove the grey in your example would be to edit it out manually.
TobyBaggins
TobyBaggins
1 year, 9 months ago
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One edit on this. I thought telegram showed the transparent  part of the image, I was incorrect on that.
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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The issue is, and granted I'm only going by what the artist has said in the past, the image is supposed to have a transparent background and when she's posted commissions of mine in the past, her version does have them transparent backgrounds. But when she sends them to me via e-mail and I download them, it apparently takes on the grey. Why that happens when all I do is download it, I dunno, but from what she's said that's not supposed to happen.

I may try playing with GIMP and see, but I shouldn't have to do anything but post it.

Ah well. This is probably me being dumb and not knowing jack shit about computers. This is why I was a History major. Machines hate me. But thanks for the help!
TobyBaggins
TobyBaggins
1 year, 9 months ago
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Edited 1 year, 9 months ago by Owner
Awww *hugs* Well, I work in IT, and I cannot think how you downloading it in email would have cause the issue either. LoL, but I will try to recreate the issue and figure it out cause now I want to know.

Maybe they can send you the file in Discord or something other than email.
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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I honestly don't know. If it helps at all, I normally use gmail and my usual browser is Firefox. I also tried Chrome which made no difference. I think it has to be something about Irfanview, or maybe Win11, but I'm in no way computer savvy to make more than just the absolute wildest, most uninformed guesses.

I suppose it could be something on the artist's end, but since she's the only person who has sent me art files with transparencies, I can't compare her files to anyone else's. I dunno. It's not really worth a huge deal of effort for what amounts to the occasional commission every few months.
dmfalk
dmfalk
1 year, 9 months ago
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Edited 1 year, 9 months ago by Owner
FWIW..........

[hugethumb]63300[/hugethumb]

Transparent background. ;) (Click on image to see how it's supposed to look.)

And the first user avatar on IB to make use of transparency, when it was implemented. ;)

<—

d.m.f.
MeganBryar
MeganBryar
1 year, 9 months ago
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Oh yeah, I've seen what it's meant to look like from the artist in question's own posts, and I've gotten a couple to work myself, back in the day.

At this point I'm just gonna blame it on computers hating me. But thanks, and it is a neat avatar!
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