[HOW TO]Preserve Alpha Channel for Start Orb BMP's

Hi all,

I've found a small utility to convert transparent PNG's to BMP's preserving the Alpha Channel.

1. Select BMP in the dropdown and check the "Convert only 32-bit images (with alpha channel").
2. Drag and Drop the transparent PNG image and the BMP will be created in the same folder.

I've used it in all my start orbs and it works perfectly. (No more black box on hover)

Interesting, this will come in very helpful. Thanks!

gladson1976 said:

Hi all,

I've found a small utility to convert transparent PNG's to BMP's preserving the Alpha Channel.

1. Select BMP in the dropdown and check the "Convert only 32-bit images (with alpha channel").
2. Drag and Drop the transparent PNG image and the BMP will be created in the same folder.

I've used it in all my start orbs and it works perfectly. (No more black box on hover)

Click to expand...

This looks cool... I only just got into making Start Orbs last night, this should be pretty helpful until I figure out the proper BMP settings.

As my post here explains, I was creating a straight BMP file, not a PNG file and trying to convert it. Does this util only support converting from PNG to BMP? In all honesty, I think it would be easier to just figure out what settings need to be used for the BMP and work with that directly.

I think I've figured out what went wrong though; my BMP is 24-bit, not 32-bit. I'm going to play with a few things tonight and see what happens.. Still, thanks for sharing this app.

24-bit bitmaps don't support alpha channels.

32-bit bitmaps have 24 bits for 3 colors (8 each for Red, Green and Blue) and one extra bit for Alpha. Since you cant have 1 bit sticking out, its considered as 1 byte (8-bits). So it becomes 32-bit.

BTW, I've used the same method to create the Start Orbs in the Custom Start Menu Button Collection thread