[APPLICATION] FixColorKey

[headkaze]

This program is for people who want transparency in GameEx but also want to keep black areas black. What it does is let you browse to a folder and it will scan each png file and if it contains transparency it will brighten the rest of the image by 5% then make the transparent area pure black. Now when you display the image in GameEx blacks should be black and the transparency should be transparent. The way it should be

FixColorKey.zip

[nintari]

woohoo! I'm gonna have to try this out lol

however I have been image creating and hunting far too late tonight it's 1:37 AM and I have to wake up for work in the morning lmao

[Elfo]

My *fix* was to add an extra layer at the top that was filled with white, then change the opacity to 1%. This allowed transparencies to still appear transparent, and blacks to till appear black on my crappy dell monitor. I borrowed a big ass 26" widescreen westinghouse monitor, and the contrast sucks so much I can't see any transistions; so I'll let others decide if this particular method detracts from image quality or not...

[nintari]

is there a suggested method for making graphics with transparency in the Gimp or photoshop to help out on this?

Elfo, I'm assuming you had to cut the white layer you placed on top to match the shape of the graphic you made, correct? I'm kinda new to some of this graphics stuff but trying to pick some up to help me design items for gameex

[Elfo]

Nope, I just filled the entire field with white, and then changed the opacity in the functions area. You can then use a clipping mask for this, put the white layer above your image, and hold alt while clicking the line between the two layers in your box on the right side (I don't know the technical names for these things). This will make the white layer show ONLY where there are filled pixels in the underlying layer.

To be fair, I tested outputting png's using the clipping mask and just leaving the white over the entire field, there seemed to be no difference in size, or quality in the transparent regions.

[headkaze]

is there a suggested method for making graphics with transparency in the Gimp or photoshop to help out on this?

Just create an image like you normally would with an alpha channel. The alpha channel will be used as the color key, so you can have pure black in your image. Run it through FixColorKey and it will turn the alpha channel to pure black and make the blacks in your image 5% lighter so they will not be keyed out.