GIF drop shadow problem

[dreamchaser]

Hi,

I have made some GIF images with drop shadows in Fireworks and imported them onto a page in DW4 and the transparency of the GIF works fine except for the drop shadow. There is a white edge around the shadow -- it doesn't blend in
seamlessly with the rest of the page. Why is this? Is there a way to use GIF's with drop shadows in DW?

Thanks.

 

[EugenePaliev]

Hello dreamchaser!

The problem is not with DW. The problem is that transparency with fading colors (like shadows) fine works with light background color of your pages (white for a example). If you use dark background on your pages - you'll always have such problems that you have now!

The only solutions is to set background color of your image to backgound color of your page. But in this case you'll lose all benefits of transparency... :-(

Good Luck!

 

[dreamchaser]

Hi,

Thanks for the info, Eugene. My problem is that the background I am using in DW is not a solid color, but a pattern. Trying to get the background pattern on the page in DW to match with the background image behind the transparent GIF seems like an almost impossible feat (Maybe it's not -- you tell me).

It seems that I have two options, if I want to keep the drop shadow, and if the above possibility won't work: (1) Change my background to a solid color (like you said) (2) Or create the entire page with background and foreground together in Fireworks and import the entire thing as one item into DW and somehow cover the entire page with this image. Can this work?

 

[EugenePaliev]

First thing will work for sure
I would choose this one because
a) I personally don't like different pattern backgrounds and
b) page without background image loads faster.

Second thing won't really help you - you'll have a lot of difficulties with that and won't get the real thing...

What I also can recommend - to leave your images with transparent background but put something behind the shadows and set color to this someshing (let's say rectangle) similar to the main color of your pattern background (it has some main BG color, isn't it?).
Thus images will be transparent but shadows will have no white edges (but it still will have some edges :-(). Will it help? It depends only on your pattern background.

Say how it helps or not.

I still would use solid BG