Transparency and Photoshop

Some things just shouldn’t be seen. That’s why Photoshop lets you make parts of images transparent – and we all know how vital a tool that it. Imagine if the only design elements you could work with were colored rectangles! Sure, maybe you could put images over them, but what if you needed a shape that had more – or less – than four sides? Without transparency, the world of graphic design would be a sad, dull, and blocky place. Thank goodness we have transparency.

Little Black-and-White Squares

Ever asked yourself what that checkerboard pattern was? Well, that’s the way Photoshop shows transparency. No, it won’t save that way.

If you don’t like the colors, you can change them by going to Edit -> Preferences -> Transparency and Gamut. Just click on the big colored squares and use whatever colors you feel like. There are also some pre-made settings in the drop-down menu, in case you aren’t feeling to creative. If you want to put it back the way it originally was, use the “Light” setting.

Saving a Transparent File

Not all file types support transparent images – JPEGS are a good example. If you try to save your images as a JPEG, it’ll fill all transparent pixels with white. To preserve your invisible space, use a GIF or  a PNG format.

Pasting a Transparent File into Photoshop

If you try to copy and paste an image into Photoshop from a Web browser, the transparent areas will turn black. For some reason, your computer’s clipboard doesn’t really like transparent images.

Unfortunately, there is no real way to fix this. To use images that were on the internet, you’ll just have to right-click and select Save As.