Graphics Questions

What is a Transparent GIF

Transparent GIFs are those graphics files which have no background color; that is, on a viewer which has a particular background color pre-defined (such as the windows one), the graphic's background supercedes that of the viewer.

If you have a non-transparent graphic which has a white background, and your viewer (client) uses a beige background, the graphic will have a large white box (or white area). If the graphic instead specified the white areas as transparent, the viewer would use the viewer's background color (beige in this example) in those areas.

See Also

• JPEG Image Compression FAQ