Comments

Jessariah67 wrote on 6/9/2004, 8:04 PM
PNGs are popular because they can contain alpha/transparency info, as opposed to JPG format, which can't give you that option.
bStro wrote on 6/9/2004, 8:07 PM
Just another image format like BMP, JPG, TIF, GIF, etc.

Nice thing about PNG files is that they can have tranparency like GIFs, but they're not limited to 256 colors. Also, unlike GIF, transparency can be applied to more than one color. They're higher quality than GIF and JPG, but smaller file size than BMP or TIF. Finally, Vegas (for me, anyhow) seems to handle them better than BMP or TIF.

All hail PNG! (BTW, it stands for Portable Network Graphics.)

Rob
Jackelberry wrote on 6/9/2004, 8:15 PM
Thanks for the help guys. So how exactly do I make one of these? Can it be done in a program like...paint? thanks again.
bStro wrote on 6/9/2004, 8:25 PM
MS Paint? No.

I use Paint Shop Pro, a PhotoShop-type program for poor folk such as myself. It's made by Jasc Software, and costs about $100. Of course, it does more than just make PNG files, and there are probably cheaper programs that can also make them, but I quite like it.

Rob
Jackelberry wrote on 6/9/2004, 8:47 PM
I downloaded the demo for Paint Shop Pro, and I have a quick question. How exactly do you get the PNG file to have a transparent background? I opened a new image...made it, and saved it as a PNG file. When I put it in vegas it has a white background. How do I get that to be transparent? thanks.
BillyBoy wrote on 6/9/2004, 10:17 PM
Minor point... GIF's CAN have multipler colors indexed as transparant. Image Ready (part of Photoshop) does it easily and also allows easily changing color depth and choice of dithering. So somethimes it pays to get a full blown product like Photoshop. Depends on what else you use it for. Paint Shop Pro is a nice knockoff, but it ain't no Photoshop. <wink>
John_Cline wrote on 6/9/2004, 10:44 PM
The latest version of Paint Shop Pro (v8.10) is more than a "nice knockoff", it has become an extremely capable image editor. In fact, it has a lot of features that Photoshop lacks and, in many cases, complex tasks are easier to accomplish in Paint Shop Pro. In order to make a PNG with transparency in Paint Shop Pro, you need to go to "File" > "Export" > "PNG Optimizer." There you will find a number of different options for creating the transparency.

John
Jackelberry wrote on 6/9/2004, 11:12 PM
thanks for the help John.
Grazie wrote on 6/10/2004, 1:58 AM
Yes John - I got PsP8 during the Easter Holidays .. PC WOrld had a 50% discount .. It is GREEEAT! .. G
Cheesehole wrote on 6/10/2004, 2:16 AM
Macromedia Fireworks uses PNG as its native file format, so you can do object oriented design within the PNG file format, meaning if you create a title or something you can just drop the PNG on the Vegas time line and edit it later in FW (change your text, move shapes, add drop shadow, change the colors, etc). The changes will automatically update to the time line when you save the file. Similar to PSD in that regard, but PNG's are more compatible. Almost any imaging app (including Internet Explorer) can open them. The only thing PNG doesn't do is lossy compression but that's what JPEGs are for.

As far as transparency in PNG's, Fireworks is the easiest way to do it. Whatever you leave transparent is transparent - there is no exporting or optimizing. That's what is so nice about it. The source / destination file are one and the same. Just use a transparent canvas color.

Regarding PSP vs PS - I bought PSP 7, and it does do some cool stuff that Photoshop can't do natively. But Photoshop 8 (CS) has upped the ante quite a bit. I didn't find that PSP 8 could compete (the jpeg/gif exporter for example is pretty lame compared to Photoshop), but the price of moving to Photoshop was very steep.