Transparency

Every time something new is drawn onto the current icon, for example a filled box, it is possible to decide if the box is to be totally opaque or if the existing colors underneath the box will show through. In the options box on the right of the toolbar is the transparency level. A value of 1.0 means that the new pixels will be totally opaque and a value less than one indicates transparency will be used. The lower the value set then the higher the transparency. The lowest possible value is 0.1 and this can be reached in increments of 0.1.

The ability to create transparency is another feature of IconPainter that allow the creation of really beautiful and unique icons. The image of the series of boxes at the top of this page illustrates the kind of effect that can be achieved using a combination of transparency and gradient shading. As the boxes get nearer to the viewer they have been made more transparent.

But what about transparent pixels in the saved image?

The icon grid always has a background color which it needs to have when images are saved as JPEG files. (JPEG does not store the transparency of pixels). When IconPainter saves images to the GIF format the option exists to store the image with a solid background (GIF87a) or with a transparent background (GIF89a). In the latter case the current background color is the color that is made transparent. When creating transparent GIF's it is recommended that antialiasing be turned off, or if used the background color is close to the intended background color. Antialiasing produces a fringe of subtle background shades that are left in the saved transparent image.

Images saved to the Microsoft ICO format follow similar rules to GIF. The background color is not saved in ICO resource files and it's not possible to know what kind of background a ICO image will appear over (that also applies o the CUR format).