Transparency issue - when converting UIView to UIImage

Question

I want to create an UIImage object from a UIView. The view is NOT opaque. for that i'm using the following code:

+ (UIImage *) imageWithView:(UIView *)view 
{     
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(view.bounds.size, view.opaque, [[UIScreen mainScreen] scale]);     
    [view.layer renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];     
    UIImage * img = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();  
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();     
    return img; 
}  

But for some reason instead of transparent background i'm getting a image with black background. I already tried to set the "opaque" parameter in UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions to NO but with no different results.

Any suggestion?

(Similar question CGContext transparency problem with no answer)

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure you can't define a transparency when creating UIImages like this - you could mask your UIImageView which uses the image though.

Something like the following functions allow for this type of operation:

// handles img masking operation
CGImageRef CopyImageAndAddAlphaChannel(CGImageRef sourceImage) {
    CGImageRef retVal = NULL;

    size_t width = CGImageGetWidth(sourceImage);
    size_t height = CGImageGetHeight(sourceImage);

    CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();

    CGContextRef offscreenContext = CGBitmapContextCreate(NULL, width, height, 
                                                          8, 0, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedFirst);

    if (offscreenContext != NULL) {
        CGContextDrawImage(offscreenContext, CGRectMake(0, 0, width, height), sourceImage);

        retVal = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(offscreenContext);
        CGContextRelease(offscreenContext);
    }

    CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

    return retVal;
}
    // png masks can mask png, gif or jpg...
- (UIImage*)maskImage:(UIImage *)image withMask:(UIImage *)maskImage 
{
    CGImageRef maskRef = maskImage.CGImage;
    CGImageRef mask = CGImageMaskCreate(CGImageGetWidth(maskRef),
                                        CGImageGetHeight(maskRef),
                                        CGImageGetBitsPerComponent(maskRef),
                                        CGImageGetBitsPerPixel(maskRef),
                                        CGImageGetBytesPerRow(maskRef),
                                        CGImageGetDataProvider(maskRef), NULL, false);

    CGImageRef sourceImage = [image CGImage];
    CGImageRef imageWithAlpha = sourceImage;
    //add alpha channel for images that don't have one (ie GIF, JPEG, etc...)
    //this however has a computational cost
    if ((CGImageGetAlphaInfo(sourceImage) == kCGImageAlphaNone) || (CGImageGetAlphaInfo(sourceImage) == kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipFirst)) 
    { 
        imageWithAlpha = CopyImageAndAddAlphaChannel(sourceImage);
    }

    CGImageRef masked = CGImageCreateWithMask(imageWithAlpha, mask);
    CGImageRelease(mask);

    //release imageWithAlpha if it was created by CopyImageAndAddAlphaChannel
    if (sourceImage != imageWithAlpha) 
    {
        CGImageRelease(imageWithAlpha);
    }

    UIImage* retImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:masked];
    CGImageRelease(masked);

    return retImage;
}

You can than call it like this:

UIImage *imgMasked = [self maskImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"full_image.png"] withMask:[UIImage imageNamed:@"masked_image.png"]];

masked_image.png needs to be an alpha channeled image which will cut out your black bg.