   Images with transparent backgrounds *besides* GIF
  Are there any image formats that support transparent backgrounds besides GIF?Im pretty sure that BMP and JPG don''t support it (but it would be nice, so please correct me if I''m wrong!). So what other formats do? Im working with an image, and I want it to have a transparent background. As far as I know, I can only do that with GIF. But I find the GIF version of the image doesnt look as good (it looses some detail) as the JPG or BMP version.  
  PNG, but support is sketchy at best ;  Any image format with an alpha channel should work. Targa (.tga) seems popular in game programming.  ;  I 2nd PNG. ;  Support for transparent PNGs isn''t exactly "sketchy". Everybody supports them fully, with one exception. Unfortunately, that one exception happens to be Internet Explorer.I''d say go with PNG anyway. If it''s for a game, well, the fact that IE sucks is of no concern to you. If it''s for a website, and you care about IE users, you''re basically forced to do without an alpha channel.FYI, PNG is a lossless compressed format. TGA is very versatile, so there may be compressed modes, but I''m a) pretty sure that they don''t compress as well as PNG and b) support for them is worse than support for PNG.cu,Prefect ;quote:Original post by Prefect  TGA is very versatile, so there may be compressed modes, but I''m a) pretty sure that they don''t compress as well as PNG and b) support for them is worse than support for PNG.Yes, in the Targa format there''s support for run-line-encoding compression. So, yes, much more primitive than the methods utilized by PNG. Good in the occasional situation I suppose. Of course: I''d also say go with PNG for most types of use.   ;  I recommend PNG as well.  From what I''ve read and seen, it''s a very capable, well designed format.  As for the sketchy issue, I believe that is fairly true.  Maybe most browsers   support PNG fully, but there are other apps besides browsers.  Many image creation programs only partially support PNG.  Here''s a list of apps that do support PNG, and how well, if you''re curious enough. ;  Targa, or PNG, seem good ideas... ;quote:Original post by AndreTheGiant   Im working with an image, and I want it to have a transparent background. As far as I know, I can only do that with GIF. But I find the GIF version of the image doesnt look as good (it looses some detail) as the JPG or BMP version.    GIF has lower quality because it only has 256 colors including tranparent color. Depending on the images, and the program that does the conversion, GIF images can actually look as good as BMP or JPG.edit: don't use MSPaint to convert to GIF.   [edited by - alnite on February 5, 2004 3:48:57 PM];quote:Original post by AndreTheGiant  Are there any image formats that support transparent backgrounds besides GIF?Im pretty sure   that BMP and JPG don''t support it (but it would be nice, so please correct me if I''m wrong!). So what other formats do? Im working with an image, and I want it to have a transparent background. As far as I know, I can only do that with GIF. But I find the GIF version of the image doesnt look as good (it looses some detail) as the JPG or BMP version.    If you''re ok with Alpha channels instead (which can be much better), Targa, BMP, DDS all support it. If you''re using directx, my vote goes for dds. 