Re: Transparent Drop Shadows

Ben,

Technically, creating a GIF with a variable-transparency drop shadow (which
it sounds to me what you're looking for), is NOT possible. You'll need to
save the master image as a layered file in PaintShop Pro 6 or Photoshop, and
use the primary color of the background of the target page as the background
layer of the image. You then flatten it, reduce the image to 256 colors, and
make the main background color transparent. In most cases where the page
background doesn't have too wild of a color scheme or your drop shadow is
fairly tight, you'll not notice this.

I should note that PaintShop Pro 6 includes a type of variable transparency
for GIFs in its GIF Exporter, but in reality, what it does is make a
threshold value for transparency. Anything below this is cleared as
transparent, anything above is non-transparent. This allows for a somewhat
better blend along the edges of a drop shadow, but you really have to play
with it to make it look good. You're still stuck with making different
copies of the same image for different colored/patterned backgrounds,
through.

What you ARE looking for, however, is only spotily supported: Transparent
PNGs using an Alpha Channel for the drop shadow. Unfortunately, PNG
transparency support is pretty wild right now, as one browser will display
it correctly, while others (greater or lesser versions of the same browser,
even) will display seemingly-random backgrounds where the transparency
should be. Until browser support for transparent PNGs is more widespread,
you're pretty much stuck with the method described in the first paragraph.

Hope this helps!
Kehvan


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Ocean" <beno(at)cnw.com>
To: <hwg-graphics(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2000 11:59 PM
Subject: Transparent Drop Shadows


> Hi all;
> Anyone know of a way to make transparent gifs with drop shadows? Sounds
> impossible, but maybe...
> TIA,
> BenO
>
>

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