I wasn't entirely sure where to post this, but here we go.

I've just finished a piece that might cause a minor stir among the mods, and I figured it'd be more polite to ask about it in advance, rather than just submit it and argue later. I'll let the images speak first:



(Left: transparent; Right: opaque.)

I'm wondering whether this would be considered NPA—even though I used strictly pixel art techniques—because of the use of the alpha channel for exterior antialiasing, to make the piece work on (more or less) any background. A handful of hues from the rest of the image are used for the alpha AA, with only two levels of partial transparency. I paid close attention to the histogram to make sure there's no stray alpha anywhere.

Part of the difficulty of using transparency is the accurate determination of colour count. I think the fairest method of determining colour count for a partially transparent image is to place it on a solid background colour that differs from any other palette entry in the image; this gives the minimum possible number of distinct colours that can be used to render the image on-screen. By such a count this has 44 colours, all of which are, in a very real sense and as well they should be, hand-chosen.

So what's the verdict? Can I be assured this and works like it will make it into the gallery, or must my work be doomed to the label "low-spec NPA"? I humbly put it up to the community to decide.

That's probably what I'll end up doing, but it can't hurt to ask, and I really believe that judicious use of the alpha channel is perfectly within the realm of pure, if not strictly traditional, pixel art.

I think that's a fair assessment, and I appreciate it. I understand that the community needs to maintain standards, and that allowing partial transparency could create a host of problems for the moderators and the community as a whole.

I fully intend to continue to do work in this vein, and I'll to that end I'll respect the gallery rules and try to inform people about my practices in the hope that other skilled pixel artists can join me in exploring all of the possibilities that lie in the uncharted territory of the fourth channel.