Transparent backgrounds

[EdFredenburgh]

Big thanks to tangerinewoman for the drop-shadow text answer (simple when you know how!).
But now I've forgotten how to make the background transparent. The drop-shadow text is to sit on web pages with a pale background colour; but when I place the Photoshop text (with drop-shadow) on the Dreamweaver page, it brings a white background area with it. When I opened a new Photoshop file to create the text, I selected Transparent background, but it obviously isn't – am I being thick?

 

[blueark]

What format are you using? If you save it as a JPEG, there will be no transparency, so you'd need to add the background in Photoshop. GIFs have limited transparency, but you won't get soft edges on your shadow unless you add the background in Photoshop. PNGs support full alpha transparency, but browser support (IE) is a bit lacking, although there are a few tricks to get it working.

 

[tangerinewoman]

yep I agree, find out your RGB values for the background colour in dreamweaver, and put that as a background to your photoshop file

 

[EdFredenburgh]

Thanks blueark. Is what you're saying, whatever the web page background colour is, copy that into the Photoshop text as a background? And if so, is there an accurate way to keep the two colours exactly the same?
Thanks again for your help.

 

[blueark]

Yes, that's it. There may be colour management settings that might introduce differences, so when creating a new document, in the advanced options, change Color Profile to "Don't Color Manage this Document".

For existing artwork, go to Edit > Assign Profile... and "Don't Color Manage this Document". Do this before adding your background.

Colour management is an advanced topic, and for web graphics, you can get by just fine without it. If you don't have a specific reason for using it, it will only cause more problems than it will solve.

 

[EdFredenburgh]

Great, thanks to both of you. Think I'm done for now.