# How to render png images with a transparent background?

**URL:** <https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428>\
**Category:** Rhino for Mac\
**Created:** [July 7, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428 "2015-07-07T16:46:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![leandro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@leandro](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/leandro)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/1 "2015-07-07T16:46:30Z")

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Hi, I’m new to Rhino.  
I’m trying to render some .png images without a background on the new Rhino for Mac  
When I preview them in the viewport set to render mode they look ok, but when I render them they came out with a white background.  
I’m using the PictureFrame command with the alpha transparency option.  
How can I render png images without a background?

Thank you, L

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/9/3/931e42f084182df7def15d6eedf2b00fe0425be4.png) ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/6/6/66adf4949b7006f6da7f052f2cce0c142ea5bbd4.png)

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**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/brianj/32/751593_2.png) [@BrianJ](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/BrianJ)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/2 "2015-07-08T17:15:29Z")

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Open the Material editor from the Render drop down menu and add the same png texture to the transparency channel of the pictureframe material. Post the png too if you can, it would be good to use it as a bug/feature request.

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**Author:** ![leandro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@leandro](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/leandro)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 6:04pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/3 "2015-07-08T18:04:44Z")

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Thank you Brian,  
still not working.  
I´m attaching some samples so see what I mean

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/5/6/5608eca742869fd0cdf928b849d11f5056dccaef.png) ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/7/2/723dc5734b2c06bb7acad42e05f00d8ed765e23b.png) ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/7/c/7cc251ada6ba47be24317578d5bf4d02684454a7.png) ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/4/e/4e988eb2d4579a2711a983f647bf1585f9c45b50.png)

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**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/brianj/32/751593_2.png) [@BrianJ](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/BrianJ)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/4 "2015-07-08T19:33:59Z")

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Thanks… my test didn’t have black in it but this looks like a bug to me. I’ll file something now for the developers to look into. In the meantime, I made you a transparency map to use with this texture map. I also made a png version with an alpha channel in PS but it didn’t work any better than yours.

@andy might have more input here too.

![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/2/3/23ab56340882c5f3ed5f04bfeb332bcf8450483f.png) ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/0/b/0ba6e1d1a6af00393f0596ac36c58c3e7bdcc03a.png)

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/e/f/ef5025ec0a1198a3970d68031d46e8b18d6504d2.png)

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**Author:** ![leandro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@leandro](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/leandro)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/5 "2015-07-09T16:10:00Z")

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Thanks…  
I will do this for now

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**Author:** ![JKayten](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/jkayten/32/503740_2.png) [@JKayten](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/JKayten)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/6 "2016-01-01T17:34:16Z")

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Hello Brian,  
I’m having an issue with images not showing alpha channel or otherwise. I’ve already managed to use picture frame to place images but now any further attempts give a gray field with an error message ‘image not found’. Can you take a look at this. Perhaps I’ve mis set an import setting?

[Images.zip](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/c/4/c4de6f643b813ff224cba12d4c9e87306ad13d65.zip) (2.4 MB)

[Top2.3dm 2.zip](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/b/d/bd71b6af239518523afb41f8e2901a49864a56dd.zip) (170.9 KB)

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/3X/c/a/ca1c4cb9862fec7be7057ee0b468e5138e447f4e.png)

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**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/brianj/32/751593_2.png) [@BrianJ](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/BrianJ)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/7 "2016-01-04T15:33:29Z")

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I see this here as well for the Top image and filed it as [http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/MR-2474](http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/MR-2474)

I did find that using Export As from Photoshop to save new copies of your png files allowed them to be imported but the alpha is shown as white… this will be a separate bug report. [http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/MR-2475](http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/MR-2475)

One other thing I noticed was that the front image name in your 3dm file wasn’t using the same name for the image file “front” instead of “frnt”… I don’t think it’s connected to the issue I reported but thought I’d mention it.

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**Author:** ![JKayten](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/jkayten/32/503740_2.png) [@JKayten](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/JKayten)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/8 "2016-01-04T17:29:25Z")

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Okay, Thanks much. I’ll continue just using jpegs for the time being.

However, having briefly had transparency available for the ref images I’m keen to have it again:relaxed:

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**Author:** ![Justin\_Parson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/justin_parson/32/51473_2.png) [@Justin\_Parson](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/Justin_Parson)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/9 "2017-07-12T15:13:45Z")

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I’m a bit late to the party, but I believe I figured this out - at least for what I was trying to achieve. In Photoshop save the image with its Alpha channel as a BMP since it retains the Alpha channel. In the Material editor use that for the Color. Then create the inverse, along with a corresponding Alpha channel and save that as BMP as well. Use this image as the Transparency in Rhino.

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**Author:** ![warren](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/warren/32/123653_2.png) [@warren](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/warren)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2018, 5:51pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/10 "2018-11-08T17:51:35Z")

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Hi, Sorry this is my first post. I’m using Rhino for Mac 5, and I have this problem too, I’m creating .pngs in photoshop but can’t get the transparency to work when I render. I can’t follow Justin’s method. In PS CS you can’t output a BMP with Alpha Channel so… is there any easy way around it.

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**Author:** ![dan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/dan/32/481637_2.png) [@dan](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/dan)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 10:50pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-to-render-png-images-with-a-transparent-background/22428/11 "2018-11-19T22:50:58Z")

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Please give this a try in [the RhinoWIP](http://www.rhino3d.com/go/download/rhino-for-mac/wip/latest). This should be fixed there.