microbadge transparency

This page is intended to help new microbadge designers to add transparency to their designs. There are many ways to do this, and this is just one. This method was chosen for the example because it was done using a free image editing program called "the Gimp." The Gimp can be downloaded at www.gimp.org for free, but of course donations are appreciated. The Gimp performs many tasks other than the simple one listed on this page.

Once you have installed the Gimp, open your image file with the program. (you'll find that right-clicking the file icon in its folder will reveal a new option - "Edit with Gimp.") The image will open in actual size, and will look something like this: (window maximized for clarity)

To be able to accurately select the area which will be made transparent, you'll need to zoom in. This can be done by selecting "View" > "Zoom" > Fit image in Window" from the taskbar.

The Gimp needs to understand that some of this image is intended to be transparent. This is done by selecting "Layer" > "Transparency" > "Add Alpha Channel" from the taskbar. If this is not done, all of the areas that are cleared in later steps will become white, rather than transparent.

The next step is to select the area or areas that will become transparent. The microbadge shown in the example has a large white area that needs to be preserved inside the speech balloon. For that reason, we'll be using the "Fuzzy Select" tool. If your design has white in several unconnected areas, and none of the white is integral to the design, the "Select by Color" tool would be the appropriate choice. The Select by Color tool can be found just to the right of the Fuzzy Select tool.

The Fuzzy select tool will select all of the white, or nearly-white pixels connected to the one which you click. You can select the threshold, which basically helps the Gimp understand how white white is. The default setting is 15, which is fine in most cases. You can increase the threshold if you find that there are too many nearly white pixels left in the transparent area. (Author's note: I generally increase the threshold to 25, just to make sure I'm getting anything that would show up against the BGG-background blue.)

Select the white area which you want to remove, and it will be surrounded by a moving dotted-line like this:

If you're satisfied that everything within that dotted line is background, you're ready to remove it. This is done by selecting "Edit" > "Clear" from the taskbar. If you've done everything correctly, the entire area will become transparent and you'll see the grey checkerboard pattern in the background like this:

In this example, steps 4 and 5 will need to be repeated in the lower-left corner. When you're finished, remember to save your image in the .png or .gif format to maintain transparency.

To upload this image to your BGG image gallery, you must also remember to use the "legacy uploader." The newer uploader will convert all of the transparent pixels to black.