Alpha channel

Informations

Author: Valentin Schmidt
License: Freeware

Description

This script allows to use images (PNGs or JPGs) with alpha channels. The alpha channel can be supplied either via a separate PNG image (called a mask) or, for PNGs, an internal alpha channel can be used directly. For the latter, the GD 2.x extension is required.

The mask must be a gray scale image (not palette-based nor true color). A black pixel means that the corresponding pixel in the main image is fully transparent; a white pixel means it's opaque. Values in between mean different degrees of transparency.
Using a mask has several advantages:

- GD is not required
- Better quality (full 8-bit alpha channel, whereas GD internally only supports 7-bit alpha channels)
- Much faster (extraction of embedded alpha channel has to be done pixel-wise)

A new version of Image() is provided:

Image(string file, float x, float y [, float w [, float h [, string type [, mixed link [, boolean isMask [, int maskImg]]]]]])

The parameters are the same as for the original method, with 2 additional (optional) ones:

isMask: if specified and true, the image is used as a mask for another image. In this case, the parameters x, y, w and h will be ignored and the mask image itself is not visible on the page.
maskImg: number of image resource (as returned by previously called Image() with isMask parameter set to true) that will be used as a mask for this image.

This version supports PNGs with internal alpha channel. Alternatively, you can also use this method:

ImagePngWithAlpha(string file, float x, float y [, float w [, float h [, mixed link]]])

The parameters are the same as for the original method, but without the type parameter.

Note: alpha channel requires at least Acrobat Reader 5.