[Bill Kinkle]

I am trying to finish my first website and am having a lot of difficulty getting colors to match in a browser. I am using Swish, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. I tried to feather the edges on a few jpg images and them use them in a swish movie, however the background color does not match. I used the same RGB code but to no avail. I cannot find a way to "export for the web" in Photoshop (similar to the option for this in Illustrator) How do I determine that the colors are web safe? Secondly, when I place the Swish/Flash movie in Dreamweaver and attempt to match the background color it is also a slightly different shade. What am I doing wrong? Lastly, how do I add an image and make it transparent in Dreamweaver? I want to add an image as a background and have the edges feathered, but i want to make transparent enough so I can have text over it and be able to read it easily Similar to this site <a href="http://www.bucks.edu" target="_blank">BCCC</a> Thanks for any help you can give me. <a href="http://www.dontnobodypanic.com/whoistest.htm" target="_blank">images</a> <a href="http://www.dontnobodypanic.com" target="_blank">background color mismatch</a>

[touie]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Originally posted by Bill Kinkle:
<strong>I am trying to finish my first website and am having a lot of difficulty getting colors to match in a browser.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">That's understandable. Web color matching is tough to do on various monitors, platforms, and browsers. But I went to your website page, the one with the photos of people against a red background, and the colors seem to match/blend just fine to me. The other URL that you gave with the Flash movie seems to have a plain, grey background to me, blending perfectly. Are you saying that Swish, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop are each showing different colors, or the browser itself is having trouble? The same RGB code doesn't necessarily help. You have to use only the web-safe colors if you want perfect consistency, though sometimes the unsafe colors will look approximately the same. You can check for web-safe colors in recent versions of Photoshop. When you're selecting the color for the background fill, there's a checkbox that says "Web-safe colors only". When you check it, your color choice will now be limited only to those colors. Take note of the color's RGB and/or hexadecimal numbers if you want to use them in other programs.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif"><strong> I am using Swish, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. ... I cannot find a way to "export for the web" in Photoshop (similar to the option for this in Illustrator) How do I determine that the colors are web safe?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Which version of Photoshop are you using? I believe that Photoshop 5.0 and up all come with a "Save for the Web" feature that is equivalent to this export feature you want. Basically, you click "Save for the Web" and it brings up a dialog box letting you compare different forms forms of compression and file format (you choose different kinds of GIFs, JPGs, or PNGs, according to your preference), and it lets you preview what it looks like before you finally save the image. I can't explain how it works in detail, but your Photoshop manual/userguide should say stuff about it.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif"><strong> Lastly, how do I add an image and make it transparent in Dreamweaver? I want to add an image as a background and have the edges feathered, but i want to make transparent enough so I can have text over it and be able to read it easily</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Based on the website you referred to, what you're asking for is more like taking the contrast out of the image, so that words can be read on top. You do this in Photoshop, not Dreamweaver. Basically, you set the Brightness on the image really high, and the contrast low, so that the photo "greys out" or blends back to almost nothing. Lowering the saturation can also help. You could make the layer itself transparent so that more background color shows through by using the layer palette. Use the "Opacity" setting--100% means opaque (not transparent at all) and 0% means completely transparent.

Hope this helps.