ConvertPngToJpg
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Photographic visual for Fake Transparent Png
Fake Transparent Png

Fake transparent PNGs

The grey-and-white chequer is how editors draw “nothing here”. When it is in the pixels, the file is not transparent at all — and no converter can make it so by changing format.

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Where they come from

Image search shows thumbnails of transparent PNGs over a chequer, and some download sites serve exactly that thumbnail as the file. Others take a screenshot of an editor window. In both cases the result is an opaque PNG — every pixel solid — with the chequer drawn in. It has the .png name and it looks right in the preview, which is why it is so often mistaken for the real thing.

How this site checks

The checker on the checkered-background page runs three tests, all of which must pass:

  1. 1No pixel in the file is transparent. A real transparent PNG fails this at once.
  2. 2At least 60% of the border is two neutral greys, one visibly lighter than the other.
  3. 3Along the top and left edges those greys alternate in runs of one length, the same in both directions — square cells, usually 8 to 16 pixels.

When a test fails, the panel says which one, so a plain grey border or a real transparent file is never reported as a fake.

Getting the real file

  • Go back to the original source — the brand's press page, the designer, the asset library — rather than an image-search result.
  • If you made it, export again with transparency on: in most editors that is PNG with the background layer hidden.
  • If neither is possible, the squares have to be removed by hand or by a keying tool, carefully where the artwork's own colours are grey. This site does not do that yet.

Questions

Why does my PNG have a checkered background?
If the squares show in every app and on every background, they are painted into the picture: the file is a screenshot of an editor showing transparency, not a transparent file.
Will converting to JPG remove the squares?
No. They are pixels like any other, so the JPG keeps them. A matte only replaces transparent pixels, and a fake has none.
How can I check without software?
Put the picture on a dark page or a coloured slide. Real transparency shows the dark page through; a fake shows the same grey and white squares as before.