Photoshop 6 is possessed.

May 18, 2007 9:20 PM

Sometime today, Photoshop 6 decided it was done making transparent pngs. Probably it's some setting I toggled accidentally, but what, and how do I untoggle it?

Earlier today I was designing buttons for a site, came up with a few variations, saved the template, and quit working on it for awhile.

Reopening the template shows that it won't save with transparency anymore. It shows the transparency in the image (checkboard background) and even shows it in the Export as Transparent Image dialogue, until I select "online" rather than "print," and then it fills the transparent background with white.

I've tried different things to make it work again. None work:
rebooting
working off an earlier template for the same thing
creating a new test-case file (two layers: one the white background, the second a slash in paintbrush) and exporting that
creating a new test-case (background layer already transparent)
exporting to gif instead (not a workable solution anyway, since I wanted more than 8 colors)
telling it a solid-color background should be transparent
deleting the entire background layer so the checkboard shows through, then telling it the empty background should be transparent
selecting the parts I want transparent and telling it that should be transparent.

In every case, it works until I select "online" and click "next." And then, even though I've told it "png," it defaults to saving as PSD, and when I change it to PNG, it says that some of the file's information won't be saved. And then if I go through with it, it wants to know whether to interlace the image and whether to save it as Adaptive, Selective, etc., which is not something that you get asked when that plugin is working as it's supposed to.

So ... any ideas what's gone wrong and how to fix it?

posted by Tuwa to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Response by poster: To what? I think it's always been on RGB, and changing it to Web reduces everything to 256 colors.
posted by Tuwa at 9:43 PM on May 18, 2007

Best answer: If it's asking about palettes (adaptive/selective) then that implies you are saving as PNG-8 which you probably do not want. There are (at least) two flavors of PNG, PNG-8 (like GIF with a 256 color palette) and PNG-24 (truecolor, like JPEG without artifacts.) Also check what setting you have for matte, if you want transparency saved in the PNG you need 24 bit and no matting.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:50 PM on May 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Ah, somehow I did change the matte to white. I don't know how; I certainly didn't do it on purpose. I changed it back ("Save for web" -- "settings" on right, then toggled the drop-down from a white bar to [None]).

Now it works, sort of: it still tries to save as a PSD, and if I toggle the drop-down menu to choose another format, the first PNG saves the transparent sections as white, while the second (which is labeled exactly the same as the first) allows the transparency to remain.

So now I'm curious why the default "png" selection on the radio button (when you choose "gif" or "png") seems to be PNG-8 when it used to be PNG-24. Because just this morning, saving as a transparent png didn't involved these extra steps choosing file format.
posted by Tuwa at 10:06 PM on May 18, 2007

Best answer: Unless you're really attached to the "export transparent" wizard thing, I recommend switching to Photoshop's "save for web" command. It's in the file menu. And it's mostly smart when it comes to transparency.
posted by O9scar at 10:17 PM on May 18, 2007

Make sure when you open a new image that you set the background for transparent. It usually defaults to white, which people forget sometimes when they save a multi-layer file as a png. As long as your background is transparent when the image is flattened, it should automatically save the png as 24-bit. At least, that's been my experience.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:28 AM on May 19, 2007

Response by poster: O9scar, that's actually much easier, thanks.

Civil_Disobedient, I wish that worked but the Export Transparent Image dialogue has (I think) become convinced that "png" in that choice between "gif" and "png" refers to PNG-8. In any case, I just made another minimal test case (new image with transparent background, new layer with daub of black paint, export as transparent) and after I chose "png" the transparency went away and the next screen (save as) had the extension defaulted to PSD.

I have no idea what I did to break that plugin--possibly some obscure set of keyboard shortcuts I hit by mistake?

I think from here out I'll just "save for web," since it seems to work more consistently and in fewer steps.

Thanks, everyone.
posted by Tuwa at 7:26 AM on May 19, 2007