Photoshop - transparent backgrounds?

Question

I spent an hour erasing the background of a photo to make it transparent, in the hope that I could superimpose it onto another background. I saved the image, about to hunt for a suitable background image, and then tried to superimpose the original, only to find that it saved the image with a WHITE background, NOT a transparent one. Does anyone know how I'm supposed to save the image so that it stays transparent?

I'm sure I did the transparent part right, as when I was erasing it, it showed the grey and white cells to signify the transparency.

Is it because I saved it as a JPEG that it adopted a white background? If so am I better off saving it as a PSD (what I assume is photoshop's own format)?

Answer 1

If it's saved on a white background try changing the blending option to darken after moving it onto the new image.

Answer 2

Yes, it is because you saved it in JPEG format.

You see, JPEG doesn't support transparency. The best-known file formats to support transparency are 1)GIF 2)PNG and 3)PSD.

I assume that you need high resolution for your work so here is my tip (as the GIF pallete isn't really color-comprehensive):

1)If you are working with other Adobe products (e.g. InDesign BUT NOT Dreamweaver) save it in the native PSD format. For purposes of functionality.

2)If you will be working with other software other than Adobe's, or will be using your image for the web (so we are talking about Dreamweaver as well now), save it in PNG as the web supports PNG and PNG supports transparency.

Hope you get this right now. :)

Answer 3

In photoshop, you need to click on the word 'background' in your layers palette.

The computer will rename the 'background' - layer O.

Now that your image is a layer you can erase as much as you like and the 'checkerboard' will come through showing that whatever you erased is completely gone.

Nick