15

I'm trying to upload a logo with a transparent background to the android market. For some reason, my png is getting transformed by the market in a way that removes the transparency.

My designer is doing his best to follow the instructions in https://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=1078870, but neither of us can figure out what's wrong. As far as we can tell, he's doing alpha in the png, but it doesn't look right.

Here's the png:

enter image description here

And here's what it looks like in the market:

enter image description here

This seems to be a widespread problem in the market, although some apps have managed to get it right. What are we doing wrong?

emmby
  • 99,783
  • 65
  • 191
  • 249
  • 1
    +1 as I looked at your png, agree with you that it has alpha, and don't have a clue why it's not working – Steve Haley Feb 14 '11 at 22:09
  • are the ones that work 8bit? I presume yours is 24 bit. – techi.services Feb 14 '11 at 23:59
  • 1
    I read the part about 32-bit PNG and I assume the 32-bits is RGBA and not 32-bits/channel. I opened the graphic in PS CS3 and see that it's 8 bits/channel. What happens if you set it to 32? – Eric Cloninger Feb 15 '11 at 00:18
  • 1
    Is this PNG over 100K? (On mobile looks to be 95K) There was a bug where PNGs over 100K were flattened that I thought we had fixed but I'd try a smaller 32-bit PNG file just in case. – Roman Nurik Feb 15 '11 at 20:47
  • Actually, at least part of the problem seems to be that the market won't let me change or delete our high res image. I switched the image to square icon instead of round, reloaded the market, and the market still shows the round. I hit "delete" on the round, reloaded the market, and the damned thing is still there again. Anyone know a workaround for that? The market seems to be silently rejecting any attempt I make to change the asset. – emmby Feb 15 '11 at 22:57
  • Ah, may just take some time to propagate changes :-( – Roman Nurik Feb 16 '11 at 19:47
  • Perhaps, but it's been 24 hours now... – emmby Feb 16 '11 at 20:16
  • I got exactly the same problem: my png has alpha, still no effect! But there ARE logos in the market that show transparency - but how?? – Zordid Feb 17 '11 at 10:53
  • No, still no luck. Thanks for checking in, I reached out to my contacts at Google last week but haven't heard back. – emmby Feb 25 '11 at 22:56
  • FWIW, I submitted the icon you attached to this question as the icon for my test app, and it worked fine. So the problem really boils down to getting Market to let you update it. – Roman Nurik Feb 26 '11 at 00:08
  • That's a great test, thanks for doing that Roman. Justin is taking a look, I'll let you know. – emmby Feb 26 '11 at 21:16
  • Magic! Thanks Roman! I will probably delete this question now (since it doesn't actually capture the solution) unless anyone objects. – emmby Feb 27 '11 at 16:42

4 Answers4

2

In photoshop... File>Save for Web and Devices, ensure that your designer saves it as a PNG-8. As others mentioned in comments, the 32-bits that https://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=1078870 is talking about is 32-bits for RGBA (8-bits for each.) I just tried this on mine, which was previously saved as PNG-24, and it seemed to have fixed it.

Jon Willis
  • 6,993
  • 4
  • 43
  • 51
  • Not sure I understand. When I go to Photoshop CS5 Save for Web and Devices and select PNG-8, photoshop indicates a color count of 256, which is consistent with 8-bits total, not 8-bits per channel. See this: https://img.skitch.com/20110215-m1qf9h238ckhubyyyymebcx53.png Am I missing something? – emmby Feb 15 '11 at 19:01
  • Hmm.. well all I can say is that transparency works (though at a much lower quality, and unfortunately with that small white outline) when saved as a PNG-8. See: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.androsz.electricsleepbeta compared to https://market.android.com/details?id=com.androsz.electricsleepdonate – Jon Willis Feb 15 '11 at 22:09
1

This was a bug in the market. Google looked into it and fixed it for us.

emmby
  • 99,783
  • 65
  • 191
  • 249
0

Well I just checked out my app and my transparent background works fine.

I have the design skills of a 2 year old, so here is a dirty fix:

Download GIMP (Freeware). Create the image with an alpha channel. Save the image (in PNG format) with the options "save background color" and "save color values from transparent pixels." Upload to market...voila.

Note, this method produces a 32 bit image.

Not much of a fix perhaps but at least it will work for now...

Edit:

As far as we can tell, he's doing alpha in the png, but it doesn't look right.

What happens when you open your image in an editor/viewer without a white background?

user432209
  • 20,007
  • 10
  • 56
  • 75
-1

Try Paint.net.it solved my problem

Vijay
  • 1