How to display a .bmp in an NSImageView for MacOs so that a certain color is transparent?

Question

I have some .bmp files that have some color (maybe black) that is supposed to show as transparent when the graphic is displayed on top a form, so the form color comes through the transparent areas. But by default, when I put these images in an Image View, the black/transparent areas show up as BLACK!

I'm thinking I need to either: - alter how the NSImageView shows the image, so that a certain color is transparent, or - modify the .bmp files somehow to make that color suitable for transparency in an NSImageView

But I don't know enough about graphics files, transparency(alpha), NSImageView, nor the image editing tools. I'm trying to use Gimp, but...not sure what I'm doing yet. It seems like there is already a color that should be transparent in the current .bmp file.

I'm sure its something simple for setting NSImageView, or editing my file, or perhaps making a mask for the image, but I don't know how yet. I've looked at various filters in IB for NSImageView, but have not found where to set the transparent color, nor how to grab that color from the image file to make sure I use the correct value.

Thanks in advance for any assistance. (I tried to post some images, but because I'm new, I could not.)

Beau

Answer 1

I'm not a Cocoa developer, but in Gimp try adding an alpha channel to your image (a layer mask, perhaps) then saving as a 32-bit PNG image (with an alpha channel), then load that PNG directly into your NSImageView. If you want to make the black pixels transparent in Gimp use the magic-wand tool to select them (use magic-wand with 0 tolerance) and just delete the contents of the selection then save as a PNG directly.