Png display issue

[PowerTrain]

Imported .png files we're using show up with a "ghost" outline around the image. The transparent areas are showing up faintly white. Any idea why this is happening? Thanks.

[LEXGRAPHICS]

you have to set it to 32 bit, you probably have 16 bit on right now.. try it

go to your desktop and right click and hit propertis. then go to the settings tab and change to 32 bit color mode

[PowerTrain]

Our systems are set high and everything looks fine, the issue is on the client end... it needs to work at their lowest common PC setting, which is a 16bit display. I was looking for an alternative answer.

[TheCaramella]

I've got the same problem. I'm not sure if it's the player version, or the editor (Flash MX 2004).

I've always used png's with transparency when importing to Flash, because they worked out fine earlier.

[PowerTrain]

Your vector looks ok on the light BG. I can see the raster side. Our png image is showing up on darker blue BG and the white box can really pop out sometimes. I'm going to try some other solutions and see if I can work around it.

On a couple images we've successfully used a flash mask layer to hide the offending white border.

[rdoyle720]

From Macromedia's site:

Issue

Transparent areas are "ghosting" in .PNG images in Flash when the monitor is running at 16-bit color display. Ghosting is a semi-transparent image appearing in an area which should be completely transparent.
Reason

This is a symptom of the way Flash dithers colors for 16 bit display.

For displaying alpha areas over solid colors, Flash uses a single pixel value for the entire area of color. When displaying gradients or images, Flash will use a pattern of pixel values so that color changes are smoother. When there is a color or image with an alpha channel over a solid color, Flash switches from a single pixel value to using a pattern of pixel values. This causes the ghosting effect seen.

For a technical description of 16-bit color problems in Flash see HTML colors look different than SWF colors (TechNote 14819).
Solution

There are three recommended workarounds to this issue:

* Choose solid colors in which their RGB values are all a multiple of 16. With this color format, the alpha areas will not dither on 16-bit displays. However, this workaround will not prevent ghosting at 8-bit display.
* Change solid colors to gradients that contain a single color. This technique will trick Flash into always dithering the color and will eliminate ghosting.
* Break apart the bitmap and use the Lasso tool to mask out and delete the transparent portions of the image. This workaround will simply eliminate the ghosted areas, and make it less noticeable.

[PowerTrain]

Awesome! Thanks for the tech tip.