Making GIFS transparent allows them to blend into your page more smoothly and creates a more professional-looking Web page. To make a GIF transparent you simply replace one color of your GIF with the background color of the browser. Many persons making their GIFs transparent also make them interlaced or interweaved. An interlaced GIF comes up on the screen in increments of every 8th line, then every 4th,.etc. until the entire GIF is loaded, instead of loading the whole image at once. Because interlaced GIFs load incrementally, the viewer is not just staring at a blank screen until the entire image suddenly pops up.
Viewers are less apt to grow impatient waiting for a graphic to emerge.
Most follow the same basic procedures and are quite easy to use. A good program for Windows users is Lview Pro , which makes GIFS transparent and interlaced in one step. Another program for creating transparent as well as animated GIFs is the GIF Construction Set . Likewise, Graphic Converter is a simple program to make your GIFS interlaced. Both programs can be downloaded at the U. Michigan Macintosh Software Archive Mirror site.