hope this helps a little iam not very good at explaining things but i can only try
if it doesnt help dont worry just post your sig here i will have a go for ya

if you want a transparant background on your image dont use shadows or outer glow efects on the areas that needs to be transparant eg parts sticking out of main image

NOTE: i use photoshop 7 .... i allway use GIF file type as well NOT PNG ... if you use a later version of photoshop iam sure there not that different

i work most of my images in photoshop image ready then transfare the image to photoshop to make the image transparant

these are just screen shots i made they might help !!!
use this button to tranfare your image to photoshop

use this setting to set the matte to NONE this is the transparant part make sure your on a GIF file type as well

click on save from here and just name it test or anything you can delete it later THIS MUST BE DONE

now go to your taskbar and click on photoshop image ready the changes you have made will be transfared over you can now click on File / Save Optimized As change the name of the file in some way


the following images where all saved as PNG file types they should of been GIF and the matte should of been on NONE again DONT use shadows and outerglow i did a little editing to try to keep the quailty of the images but some i cant

this might be better off in the guide section?

thnx but shouldnt this be in the "Graphics Tutorials" category

With some shapes, the outer glow effect is important to keep some choppy edges looking smooth. Choppy edges is why I would never use GIF file format, too low quality for me. That's my opinion though.

i agree with SGTR ^^^

(I am sure this will be moved for you, to the tut section.)
thanx ever so much I have always wondered how this was done...I shall look forward to giving it a go cheers blighty

The difference with png and gif is :- Gif is a smaller file size but limited because it saves in 256 colours only, hence you can't use a drop shadow or glow on the outside cos it goes grainy. Png is larger but lossless. Both open with most software. Gif is mainly used for animation but you can also use mng files for that as well which is the companion file to png. Mng files haven't really taken of yet and gif remains the most popular for animtions.

I've got to agree with SGTR, GIF is OK for animations but it is a very lossy format. You lose the smoothness of edges and colour transitions and that's the reason that I don't use it

Yea............ what they said