IS THERE A WAY TO AVOID HAVING TO RUN MY IMAGES THROUGH PHOTOSHOP?

You could use a program like Character Maker 1999 to edit stuff. That's what I personally use, and it works fine.

Yes. Place the image directly into the folder.

The color at the first index is used for transparency, you'll have to play with them to get it to work. Simply copy+paste into your folder wont' work (else the World Wrecker from Demon's Gate wouldn't work, he's too bad to be imported by 2k3 normally!)

Alternatively if it's a picture you can just set it to not use transparency in show picture iirc

The first color of the color palette in an indexed image.

The way indexed color works is that each pixel has a number. Each number corresponds to a color in the image's color palette. Index 0 might be, say, that pink background color you're so familiar with. Make sense?

8-bit and indexed image formats like 8-bit BMP and PNG and GIFs use a color index with 256 indexes each index being a 24-bit color (CORRECTION: 8-bit PNGs use 32-bit colors). Each pixel of a picture isn't a color but a number indicating what index the pixel's color should be. RM2k(3) use the first index color as the transparent color by default since BMPs and 8-bit PNGs don't support transparent colors (GIF does though) (CORRECTION: PNG's 32-bit colors support alpha channels).

I'm not sure how to make an image not use the first index so RM2k3 won't have transparencies issues. If you need an image to not have any transparencies I'd just work around it: Expand a dimension of the picture by one pixel, fill it in with a color you aren't using, and set that one pixel wide strip of useless color to be the transparent color.


*edit*
In a way, this post shows that RM2k(3) support PNGs about as well as Paint does. In that "not at fucking all" sense.

Need to correct myself: 8-bit PNGs do support alpha channels (so they're indexed 32-bit colors). Feel free to throw rotten eggs for propagating false information (especially since all my static avatars are 8-bit PNGs that sometimes have transparencies)

*edit*
See current avatar

I don't know how to effectively do pixel work in photoshop, so I do the same thing as mog most of the time.

EDIT:
for clarity, I often find that when I use certain tools, like eraser and brushes and paintbuckets, the effects seem to "bleed" into nearby pixels (which would be awesome for large images, but really sucks when you are working with 32x32 images.)

author=Liberty
<Tried to figure out where the paint can/auto fill is at. No go. -_-;

there's a paint bucket in the toolbox on the left side. alternately, you can press "G," which is the keyboard shortcut. it's called the Fill Tool, if you'd care to google.

when people use photoshop, they seem to forget google exists.

author=kentona
for clarity, I often find that when I use certain tools, like eraser and brushes and paintbuckets, the effects seem to "bleed" into nearby pixels (which would be awesome for large images, but really sucks when you are working with 32x32 images.)

this is because you're using the brush tool when you should be using the pencil tool. the brush tool anti-aliases and the pencil tool does not. you can also change the eraser to different modes, one of which is "Pencil."

if you click and hold on any tool icon in the toolbox, there are alternate tool options for each tool, all clearly labeled. those of you who have pshop, go check this out. you'll probably find shit you never knew existed. like the fill tool and gradient tool share a slot because they are related, as well as the brush and pencil, and all iterations of the pen tool.

i'm thinking i should maybe write a "HOW TO PIXEL IN PHOTOSHOP" tutorial.