I need help with making images transparent

[TheRingmaster]

I just got Fireworks MX and when I make an image transparent on the program it looks great, but then when I upload it on to my webshell it ends up with a grey background. someone told me to change the canvas color to an ugly pink because that is what a site will pick up as transparent but it didn't work and I wanted to know if anyone could help me out? I don't want any canvas left at all, and where is the circle tool on this thing?

Thanks

 

[blueark]

In reverse order: The circle tool is hidden behind the rectangle tool. Click and hold on the rectangle tool, and a few more shapes pop up, including elipse. Use this with the shift key held down to create a circle.

Transparancy is a little misleading though. With PNG files, and in Fireworks itself, you can have lots of different strengths of transparency. An item can be totally transparent, semi-transparent, totally opaque, or it can fade between all three states.

Although some browsers support PNG files, the only file format that you should use for transparency is GIF, for compatability reasons. Unfortunately, this only supports two levels of transparency: either a pixel is transparent, or it's not. This means that you won't get the same softness as you see in Fireworks.

To get this to work, in Fireworks you must choose GIF as your output format. Look in the Optimise palette for your options. One is transparency, and it is usually set to 'No Transparency'. Change this to 'Index Transparency' and click the first eyedropper at the bottom of this palette (Add color to transparency). Clicking anywhere in the image will make that color transparent.

If you want smoother transparency, you must cheat a little. Simply create a background in Fireworks that matches the background in your web page. When you export, it won't be transparent really, but it will appear that way to people viewing the site. Of course, backgrounds that are one solid color are easier to get to work than, say, a patterned background.

hth

 

[TheRingmaster]

It still didn't work. I did all the step for the first part and the image was transparent on Fireworks, but when I uploaded it, it looked the same, thanks for trying to help though. I am kinda cpu stupid.

If you want to see the image I am talking about go to

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/Drewspage.

The first image on there was supposed to be transparent, but I ended up liking it with just they grey. Click that image and then the next page will show you what I mean. Once again, thanks for your time.

Drew

 

[blueark]

Aaaaahhh.... you see, you're just saving the Fireworks file and uploading it to your web page. Don't do that. That's only your 'master' copy for use in Fireworks. What you need to do is also save a web-ready version using File > Export. Use this file instead, and among other things, it'll speed up your pages loading times too!