Transparency (graphic)

Transparency is possible in a number of graphics file formats. The term transparency is used in various ways by different people, but at its simplest there is "full transparency" i.e. something that is completely invisible. Of course, only part of a graphic should be fully transparent, or there would be nothing to see. More complex is "partial transparency" or "translucency" where the effect is achieved that a graphic is partially transparent in the same way as colored glass. Since ultimately a printed page or computer or television screen can only be one color at a point, partial transparency is always simulated at some level by mixing colors. There are many different ways to mix colors, so in some cases transparency is ambiguous.

In addition, transparency is often an "extra" for a graphics format, and some graphics programs will ignore the transparency.

Raster file formats that support transparency include GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, and JPEG 2000, through either a transparent color or an alpha channel.

Most vector formats implicitly support transparency because they simply avoid putting any objects at a given point. This includes EPS and WMF. For vector graphics this may not strictly be seen as transparency, but it requires much of the same careful programming as transparency in raster formats.

More complex vector formats may allow transparency combinations between the elements within the graphic, as well as that above. This includes SVG and PDF.

A suitable raster graphics editor shows transparency by a special pattern, e.g. a checkerboard pattern.

One color entry in a single GIF or PNG image's palette can be defined as "transparent" rather than an actual color. This means that when the decoder encounters a pixel with this value, it is rendered in the background color of the part of the screen where the image is placed, also if this varies pixel-by-pixel as in the case of a background image.

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