In the book "Creating Web Graphics" by Shafran and Oliver they suggest thinking of how an overhead projector works to understand transparent gifs. "An overhead projector takes pieces of clear plastic with writing on it and displays only the writing on a screen. Since the plastic is transparent, it isn't projected onto the screen."
"GIF images can only be saved in a rectangular format," so that is why all the fuss about trying to make part transparent when you want to make or use icons or bullets that are round or a different shape. They note that most icons and bullets are saved in GIF format instead of JPEG because of the transparency functionality. They can improve the appearance of an image on a web page.
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This is a transparent GIF file |
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This is a non transparent GIF file |
Some of the more sophisticated graphics / paint programs support a variety of different formats. When you have the graphic loaded, the directions say to use the eye dropper icon and select the background color to make transparent by clicking the right mouse button. If the correct background color is already selected, you do not need to use the eye dropper. Press File|Save or Save As and from Options select "Set the transparency value to the background color" with Save as type Gif-Compuserve, Sub type Version 89a - Noninterlaced. That should do the trick.
Tutorial by Ingo and Anne
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