How Image Transparency is Represented by File Explorer and in Image Editors

[britechguy]

One of my newer clients is an artist who has very little background in working with stuff digitally who now has to do so. One of the things that has confused him the most is understanding transparency in images, and particularly how that's represented in both File Explorer and various image editors. He repeatedly believes that the solid black background used in File Explorer, and the gray wash used in his chosen image editor, is "real" rather than a place holder to make the presence of transparency known to the person looking at the image.

I put this together for him, and thought it might be of use to some here when you encounter someone who just can't seem to grasp the concept of transparency in images and how that gets indicated to you: How Image Transparency is Represented in File Explorer and Image Editing Programs.docx

 

[GTP]

Wow! Thank you for this! This is incredibly informative and removed a lot of the confusion around transparency.
I use mtPaint on Linux. (available for for Windows or Linux - ignore the "1998 look" it doesn't look like that!.

Now I have a better understanding of "transparency!"

 

[HCHTech]

I put this together for him

Well done - I got to the end and wanted another page -haha. "Tell me more about transparency." Sign of good writing!