[Jnadke]

With Photoshop, Illustrator, and Paint Shop Pro (Illustrator is easier to create transparent and/or animated images with), all you have to do is take the image in question (hopefully with a solid-color background), and use the Magic Wand Tool. Click on the background, and hit the delete key, so that you can see the checkerboard beneath. That area will then be transparent.

Then just save it as a gif. If it wasn't already a gif image, it'll probabaly whine that you have to set your colour pallette first. Otherwise, you can save it as a png image file.


If you just want to do transparency, it's easiest with Microsoft Photo Editor. Just load the image, and click the "Set Transparent Color" button. Click the area you want to be transparent, and follow the prompts. Then save it.