When making your pic transparent there are a couple of things you may have to do depending on the graphic you are using.

If your picture already has a white type background around it you want to do the following:

Once you have your picture open look at your layer palette, if the Layer says, "Background" (see pic below)

Then you need to RIGHT click on that and click where it will say

"Promote Background to Layer"  If you don't when you try to delete the white it will simply fill it in with another color. (silly thing eh?) (See pic below)

You will need the "Magic Wand Selection Tool" this can be located on the left side palette under your "Selection Tool" (see pic below)

Now click anywhere on the WHITE part surrounding your picture, you should now see what they call marching ants surrounding your picture. (see pic below) When you see that click the DELETE key on your keyboard.

Now the white should be gone.

If you are creating your tag starting out with a blank image be sure when you select "New" that you have the box beside "Transparent" X-ed. (see pic below) If it's not you WILL get a colored background. The background should actually show the checkerboard tiles if it IS transparent.

From here complete making your tag. And then save it. Remember to save it as a .psp. (see pic below)

Once you have saved your image and have RE-opened it in Animation Shop to save it you need to follow the instructions below to KEEP it transparent.

First of course you Click on "Save" When the box pops up go ahead and name your animation and click "Save"

Now you will have a NEW pop up box, in that box locate the button that will say "Customize" Click on it. (see pic below)

Now look for the Tab toward the Top that says "Partial Transparency" and click on it. (see pic below)

Below you will see the settings I personally use 78% rather than 
2% where it says Convert pixels less than. (see pic below)

Notice the color box towards the bottom of the pop up. IF the graphic your working with has the basically the SAME color entirely surrounding it you can change the color in that box to a slightly lighter color then that border. If the surrounding border has many different colors I use a light off white color. Basically this color will be placed as a thin border around your picture so sometimes it is best to change the color. Don't be scared to play with it. If you do not like the results you can always

RE-SAVE it and try again.

Once the settings are like you want simply click OK then proceed thru to end of the pop ups and there you go, you have a transparent pic.

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