I have been looking for a solution to turn PNG-24 with alpha transparency into a PNG-8 WITH alpha transparency for a while. This possible with Fireworks, but I didn’t really want to install, buy or fireworks. (It scares me).
Side question: Why o’ Why can’t Adobe make Photoshop do this?
Ok, the instructions on the site are pretty clear, but I will repeat them just in case.
- In Photoshop save your files with alpha transparency as PNG-24 files. Test in a modern browsers.
- Download PngQuant (Tested) or the newer version (I didn’t try this one) and put the .exe file in your c:windowssystem32 folder. Also, there is a GUI you could use (untested) called Manfred.
- Put the PNG-24 files in a folder like c:png-transform
- Run a command prompt and type: pngquant 256 filename.png
- This will create new files in the same directory that are PNG-8 but act like PNG-24 in a modern browser. These look pretty good in IE6. (See below)
Notice in the image below that the IE6 image acts like a GIF file with single transparency. In IE7 (or other modern browser), the file is dithered and creates a smoother line. This is critically important when using images like this in Emails! You can’t add in IE6 PNG fixes using javascript in an email!
This is going to be my standard process from now on. I am thrilled with the outcome.
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