Total newbie...transparency help...

This is my image...

URL

And this is what I want to do. I want the background to be transparent, so when I put it on my website, the website background colors show through. The pic is on a single layer and all I did was add the text. I'm totally new to Photoshop so..yea. Can anyone please help me?

The problem with a .PNG is that some browsers have difficulty with them. You're better off creating a JPG of the image that you'd like and use your websites colors as the background.

If you really need it to be truely transparent, save it as a GIFand just make sure its on a transparent background.

lol like i said, im a complete new-guy. how would i put it on a transparent background? whar steps would i go through? and, is there any other formats that will do transparency?

Gifs and Pngs will keep transparency, but as Cheesefood said, it's better to go with gifs for browser compatibility.

To make the background transparent, select the "magic eraser tool" (by right-clicking over the eraser tool from the main tool bar and picking "magic eraser").

Then click on your image with the eraser. I had to click once near the top, once near the bottom, and then enlarged the image view and clicked inside the letters where there was solid white remaining.

Its a simple way of making a background transparent IF the background is a solid color.

Including the one I did to show you the result. Saved as a PNG since your original was,

Ez

Ok, well that was strange. I saved it as a PNG and after uploading, the transparency turned a bluish-gray. Started from scratch and same thing. So I saved it as a gif the third time.
One of the experts will have to explain what happened to the transparency on the PNG versions because I don't get it - unless its my own browser not wanting to correctly interpit the PNG!

When I use the Magic Eraser Tool, I click and nothing happens on screen. Is there supposed to be a flashing dotted line around the area like if you used the magic wand?

No. However, you can use the "magic wand" tool to automatically select the white background areas, then use the "eraser" tool to erase out all the white inside the selected area. I think that just makes an extra step, though - easier to just click with the "magic eraser".



You need to click on the white areas of your image, and the layer you are working on is important. If, for example, you have two layers - the original image and a duplicate layer to work on above it, and you erase from the duplicate layer, you won't see the transparency becasue the original layer below is still showing. If you are working in two layers like that, you need to make sure the little eye icon, which indicates layer visibility, is NOT showing on the bottom layer. I've done that myself a couple times - I knew I had transparified a part of the image but it wasn't showing transparent until I remembered to turn off the layer below it. Also, you need to check the opacity and tolerance levels. And uncheck "Contiguous" - in your graphic, that erases all the white in one click instead of the several clicks it took me the first time when i had "Contiguous" checked.

More explanation from the Adobe help file:

When you click in a layer with the magic eraser tool, the tool automatically changes all similar pixels. If you're working in the background, or in a layer with locked transparency, the pixels change to the background color; otherwise, the pixels are erased to transparency. You can choose to erase contiguous pixels only or all similar pixels on the current layer.

1. Select the magic eraser tool .
2. Do the following in the options bar:
*Enter a tolerance value to define the range of colors that can be erased. A low tolerance erases pixels within a range of color values very similar to the pixel you click. A high tolerance erases pixels within a broader range.
*Select Anti-aliased to smooth the edges of the area you erase.
*Select Contiguous to erase only pixels contiguous to the one you click, or deselect to erase all similar pixels in the image.
*Select Use All Layers to sample the erased color using combined data from all visible layers.
*Specify an opacity to define the strength of the erasure. An opacity of 100% erases pixels completely. A lower opacity erases pixels partially.
*Click in the part of the layer you want to erase.

You'll get it; you just need to play around with the options.

Ez

here's the problem with that image ... since the text has little spatterings in it that are also white, you need to put the text on it's own layer. if you use the magic wand/eraser tool, it will pick out the white in the text. i don't think that's what you want. and i would also suggest using gif instead of png.