[RMXP] [SOLVED] PROBLEM WITH EXPORTING/EDITING ANIMATION GRAPHIC

Hello, everyone. I'm currently working on my "Swap in the Middle" entry and found myself struggling with a graphics-related problem. I want to use three animation frames from one of RMXP's RTP animation sets - namely "Wind-01" - and turn them into a character set.

This is what that animation sheet normally looks like:

(Original from the RTP)


The graphics I'm interested in are the three tornado frames (the one in the bottom left corner is kind of hard to see.) Now, to show you what my issue is, displaying one of these as an animation in-game makes looks like this:



Yet, whenever I try to edit the image, this is what it turns into:



My guess is that there is some kind of semi-transparency setting involved here that is stored in the graphics file itself and causes the outer edges of the animation to "melt together" with whatever colour surrounds them, so to speak. Exporting and then reimporting the unedited original animation sheet from the RTP does not give me the option to choose transparent colour for this file, as it normally would, which supports my theory.
Unfortunately, I am rather clueless when it comes to working with graphics and have no idea how to prevent such transparency settings from getting erased when editing a file. There's probably a really simple solution for this, but I have no idea what it could be. Does anyone know how to make this work?

I'm going to look into it. Thanks for the suggestions!