How to render background of .gif file to be transparent

[mjohn551]

Greetings,

I have a .gif file of a play button that I'd like to place on another graphic image.  How can I render the are outside of the circl (see attached) so that it is transparent? Any help appreciated.

Mike

[Bojan Živković]

Do you have white background as shown on image above? There are a couple of ways to remove white bgr in Photoshop. Ensure that you are in RGB color mode from Image > Mode menu:

• Select outside area using any selection technique then add layer mask.
• Use vector drawing tools to create path then convert it to vector mask.
• Select outside area then hit Delete button to delete that part. You must be on regular layer to delete outside area and make it transparent.

[Mohammad.Harb]

First Make sure the image has no background, 

Export the file from "save for web (legacy)" and check the settings from there.

[Silkrooster]

Gif format only supports a single shade to be used as transparent, Therefore the image will have a hard edge. Since the format is 8-bit, then one of the colors must be used for the transparency. So all you need to do is assign white as tranparent which is done in the save for web (legacy) dialog box.

[Silkrooster]

BTW, I am assuming you wanted to save as a gif not open a gif. If its the latter then you could just use a blend mode or the blend if slider.

[Bojan Živković]

OP: "How can I render the are outside of the circl (see attached) so that it is transparent?"

I am assuming OP wants only area outside black circle to be transparent but to keep white inside as it is. Perhaps I do not understand what is actual request or others are missing important part?

[JJMack]

If you rotate the button just rotate the triangle part a small rotating animated Gif circle will not have a constant sharp edge.