Trying to create transparent gif, not coming out like i want

[eberdome]

Hello,

In the past i have made transparent png's using fireworks, which is a piece of cake. We all know, IE does not support transparent png's in earlier versions. So i am trying to create my menu in transparent gif instead, I found a tutorial online and followed it to the tee, but my image is coming out all jacked up. I will post the png of what im tring to get the gif to look like. It seems more layers are added behind the words when i try to make it a transparent gif. Anyone know why??


The PNG



The GIF

[VIPStephan]

I don’t see a difference except the GIF having a white background (and being a tad brighter). What do you mean by “more layers are added”? There can only be the layers that you have (and are active).

[eberdome]

I updated the image above, it was the wrong gif, so that is what it comes out like. I followed the tutorial to the T!

[VIPStephan]

That looks like you had the text on a transparent canvas but had the matte color set to something dark when exporting. Check that the matte color is white (in the export window where you choose the file type, transparency, etc.) or whatever your page background will be.

[eberdome]

but the background is linear, not solid, so regardless of the color i choose, still get that nasty border around each letter, this one is black because matte was black, but if i change the matte color, then i still get that nasty border corresponding the matte color

heres a link where the png one is : http://experiencemediaonline.gorillaonemedia.com/ css sprites at the top.

The reason why im tring to create this gif in the first place is because if you hover over the menu in IE7, png's have a transparency problem!

[VIPStephan]

Well, if you didn’t know it yet: GIF can only have 256 colors and index transparency. That means you can only either have 0% or 100% transparency, nothing in between. So, all the pixels at the edge of an object that are semi-transparent will become fully opaque (solid) when you export it as GIF. The best you can do there – well, actually you can’t do anything there that wouldn’t become obvious in the end with that gradient background.

However, IE7 doesn’t have any transparency issues with images unless you change the opacity with CSS where the transparent parts become black, which, obviously, you are doing. I’ve read that a workaround to this is to not change the opacity of the elements with the images themselves but to change the opacity of their parents/containers but others, on the other hand, have also reported that this doesn’t work either. I found something on sitepoint, I don’t know if that’s of help.

As last resort your option would be to provide the fade effect to browsers that can handle it and for IE you just make it switch from a semi-transparent state to fully opaque (which means switch the images themselves, not set CSS opacity).