Icon editing with transparent background

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Level 1

8 points

Icon editing with transparent background

I am having difficulty getting an edited icon background to be transparent. I know that a jpg will not support transparent backgrounds and I have tried saving the edited picture as a gif, but when I paste it into the info box it always comes up with a white square around the icon.

I remember hacking icons back in the olden days with good old ResEdit, is there a modern equivalent that I can use to get my background to go transparent??

Tim

MBP 2.2 2G, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jan 12, 2009 12:55 PM

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Answer 1

tjanz Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 12, 2009 4:18 PM in response to tjanz

I have tried various searches and found tons of icons but nearly nothing in the way of icon editing. On your suggested search (Mac OS icon application), numerous hits for icons from applications are found, but very few actual applications that address icon editing. IconFactory did not come up until the 44th hit, and in looking at it, the actual program is called IconBuilder and they want $79 for it. ResEdit was free and easily available. Is there a new equivalent of ResEdit? I have done several searches and not found anything, which is why I asked the question on the forum.

Transparency is still an issue, any thoughts?

Tim

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Answer 2

tjanz Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 12, 2009 11:08 PM in response to :79:

So I just tried saving my icon in Fireworks as a png, and when I tried to paste it into the get info slot, I still get a white background. Transparency is there in Fireworks but gets eliminated when I paste.

It should be easy, why is it not working?

Tim

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Answer 3

Jan 13, 2009 12:10 AM in response to tjanz

If you have saved the file as a png, with the transparency, just open it in Preview, verify that Preview is indeed displaying the transparent background as expected. If it is, then do Select All, Copy, then paste into the GetInfo box for the file or folder you want to have the icon. Not sure what you mean by "the get info slot"--you select the wee little icon at the top of the GetInfo window, make sure you can see a faint blue halo meaning it is selected, then paste there.
Francine

Francine
Schwieder

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Answer 4

tjanz Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 13, 2009 10:36 PM in response to Francine Schwieder

Hello Francine, thank you for your input. I took the exact same png file from Fireworks that was not pasting properly and opened it in Preview. The transparency looked all as it was supposed to be, so I copied and pasted it into the small icon in the get info window. Bingo, transparency was transferred. I wonder if this means that I need to go through the Preview step to paste the right information?

It does work, whether it is a work around or a solution is not an issue for me. Thanks again for all who offered advice.

Tim

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