I find that many people opt for full transparency when applying images/graphics to their forums. This is fine, if that image hasn't got any curved areas or transparent areas. However, Opting for full transparency when dealing with curved images results in that image having a jaggy border showing around it which gives that image a rough taccy and sometime redundant colour around the edges. if you've not used the correct matte colour to compliment the background colour to which the image is being applied onto basically it's going to look hideous.

I find that using the matte drop down menu in photoshop and picking the appropriate colour background that the graphic is being applied onto eliminates the rough graphic which has become more commonplace. Using this method, will result in smoother more higher quality displayed images without that redundant edge looking so nasty.

Lets Begin!!

You have your image/graphic completed, and you are ready to save and apply that image to your forum and/or website.

1. In Photoshop. Click File scroll down to Save For Web, Select and click.

2. Now that you are in the Save For Web menu. Follow the instructions showed in the screenshot. Bare in mind, that the color you choose for instruction no 2 is the colour of the background that the image is being applied onto. (Screenshot Below)


Finished. You should now have a smoother nicer looking image applied onto your forum or website.

P.S The difference with Matte vs Transparency when images contain curved/anti-aliased edging.

Thanks for this Shelley It's always nice to see people learning how to produce nicer, cleaner images for the net

Am I doing something wrong if I just go -> Save As... -> GIF -> Select matte -> select transparency -> ok -> Select interlaced -> Save...?

Going to the Save as menu will not give you the results or options you need to apply a specific image to a certain background.

As a designer, I'm sure your aware that certain vbulletin images are not always placed on the same background colour and/or gradient therefore the matte colour will change for that specific image therefore the Save for Web menu would be your best option purely because of it's versatilty to organize/optimize your images better when they are at their completion stage.

Goodluck with your new styling site nick and if you need any further assistance feel free to ask. :p

I'm gald I'm not in charge of the designing :p You can through the Save As option define the matte to be a foreground or background colour. Before you save you can just define one or the other as the colour you want.

ps. Thanks for the support :p