IE6 PNG transparency

Question

How can I fix PNG transparency bug in IE6 for background image?

Answer 1

I'm going for the Necromancer badge here. :)

This isn't exactly a fix, but a handy workaround I'm using from time to time to support transparency on IE6 without any extra code at all. It won't always fit the bill, but pretty often it does.

The idea is that most of the time you will need to show your PNGs on a fixed color background anyway. A PNG file can have a background color specified, and IE6 will honor it. What you do is that you get the TweakPNG utility and open up your PNG file. There you will be able to add a bKGD chunk, which specifies the desired background color. Just type in the color that you will need to show the PNG on, and you're done.

One note - PNG files often include some values to compensate for different display devices. There might be things like intended color spaces, chromacities, gamma, etc. These aren't bad as per se, but IE somehow misinterpreted them, and the result was that the PNGs showed up darker than they should have been (or maybe IE was the only one who got it right? I don't remember...)

Anyway, if you want every browser to display your PNGs the same, you should delete these chunks with the above mentioned utility.