Post by Admin on Nov 18, 2008 14:55:34 GMT -5
1) Download GIMP for free and install it: www.gimp.org
2) Save the image you want to make transparent to your desktop.
3) Right-click on the image icon and choose "Open With Gimp", or just open Gimp and then open the image. (Note that Gimp has two separate windows, one for all the tools and one for the actual image you're editing).
4) If the image is small, select the "100%" and increase it to make the viewable image larger (this doesn't change the actual size of the image). It's at the bottom of the image window.
5) On the image window, select Layer from the menu, then Transparency, then click "Add Alpha Channel".
6) On the toolbar window, choose the wandy looking thing. (This selects an area of your image based on color.)
7) Click the area of the image that you want to be transparent. in this case, it is the white part.
8) Look at the image to see if the auto-select chose all of the pixes - there should be a dotted line around the part of the picture you want to see.
9) If it didn't, adjust the threshold on the toolbar window to make it more or less sensitive as needed. Reclick after each adjustment to see if it is working.
10) When you have the area accurately selected, press delete on your keyboard. (You may have to do various areas individually if the parts you want transparent are different colors or very precise).
11) You should see gray squares where the image will be transparent.
12) Click File / Save as on the image window. Choose your file location, then type in whatever you want to call it with .png afterward (this is the transparent image file type). So, in this case, I typed in koala.png.
13) On the next save screen, make sure "Save color values for transparent pixels" is checked. The compression level sets the quality - higher = clearer but bigger file.
That's it! good luck! Note that if the color of the background you're deleting is very dark, it gets really hard to get a good transparency... you'll get some bleed over around the edges. White always works best.
...It's very easy for those who can read, but obviously I'm not one of them. It took several attempts before I read to save the picture as a .png 
