GIF images error

[Aden]

Hello everyone and thank you for having a forum for this sort of thing.
I recently redid a web site for a group I'm involved in.
I'm self taught in design, html, and css so I'm looking for some help.
My page http://www.slimmovies.com
whenever viewed by anything but IE 6 it looks great but then in IE6 it fills in the backgrounds of the .gif images with these grey boxes.

Please help and much thanks in advanced.

[oley]

Aden, the problem here is well known and many tears have already been dropped over it... if it makes you any happier to know this ;)
On your website you are using 24-bit PNG graphics with 8-bit transparency which IE still does not support (and to the best of my knowledge, they are not going to fix it in IE7 either). The only way you can fix the problem is to convert the supporting graphics either into GIF or into 255-color PNG with binary transparency.

[Aden]

Which will make the images look the best.
I'm using photoshop on the images and I'm not quite sure how to convert them to the .png you describe.
I tested converting them to .GIF and it works but the text doesn't seem as clear when the background should be transparent.

[jaymanson]

I tested converting them to .GIF and it works but the text doesn't seem as clear when the background should be transparent.

From the way the text looks on the Slim Movies menu option, I can see the problem straight away!

On Photoshop, use the option Save For Web instead of Save As

If you select to save the image as a GIF, then increase the amount of colours used. By the look of the text, I would say you're only using 4 colours on that Slim Movies menu image - I would increase that to at least 64 if you want your gradient on the active link to still look smooth!

Jay

[Aden]

My bandwidth is a major factor here.
Which is going to be faster converting all these images to .gif with 64 colours or
using a .png file type like oley mentioned "255-color PNG with binary transparency"
If the png is better how do you make that type of file?

[oley]

Aden,
255-color GIF and 255-color PNG are about the same in size. It's just a matter of personal preference.
When you use the "Save for Web" option in Photoshop, you can choose from several formats (including the forementioned two) and adjust the settings. At the bottom of the dialog screen you will see how those settings affect the file size of the resulting image. Hope, this helps.

[Aden]

Well personally I don't like how either of them work out.
I've been research alternative methods but I might be getting myself in over my head.
I've looked at these two sites and have paly around a bit with the first one but with no luck
http://koivi.com/ie-png-transparency/
http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/pngbehavior/pngbehavior.html