Why can't I use background image and color together?

Question

What I am trying to do is to show both background-color and background-image, so that half of my div will cover the right shadow background image, and the other left part will cover the background color.

But when I use background-image, the color disappears.

Deplane

What's your CSS code? – Irreconcilable

Answer 1

It's perfectly possible to use both a color and an image as background for an element.

You set the background-color and background-image styles. If the image is smaller than the element, you need to use the background-position style to place it to the right, and to keep it from repeating and covering the entire background you use the background-repeat style:

background-color: green;
background-image: url(images/shadow.gif);
background-position: right;
background-repeat: no-repeat;

Or using the composite style background:

background: green url(images/shadow.gif) right no-repeat;

If you use the composite style background to set both separately, only the last one will be used, that's one possible reason why your color is not visible:

background: green; /* will be ignored */
background: url(images/shadow.gif) right no-repeat;

There is no way to specifically limit the background image to cover only part of the element, so you have to make sure that the image is smaller than the element, or that it has any transparent areas, for the background color to be visible.

Gnathonic

How do i get this working. I want to use background: -webkit-linear-gradient(bottom, rgb(222,222,222) 19%, rgb(201,201,201) 50%, rgb(219,219,219) 80%); AND background-image: url(icon.png) no-repeat right; How do i apply both the gradient and the image-icon. Please help. – Aitken

#2504571 – Deplane

RE: @AnishNair - The background: is shorthand and then assumes there is no image specified and walks over the background-image – Andreandrea

This is what was causing me issues - Thanks! If you use the composite style background to set both separately, only the last one will be used, that's one possible reason why your color is not visible: – Polecat

Answer 2

To tint an image, you can use CSS3 background to stack images and a linear-gradient. In the example below, I use a linear-gradient with no actual gradient. The browser treats gradients as images (I think it actually generates a bitmap and overlays it) and thus, is actually stacking multiple images.

background: linear-gradient(0deg, rgba(2,173,231,0.5), rgba(2,173,231,0.5)), url(images/mba-grid-5px-bg.png) repeat;

Will yield a graph-paper with light blue tint, if you had the png. Note that the stacking order might work in reverse to your mental model, with the first item being on top.

Excellent documentation by Mozilla, here:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Using_multiple_backgrounds

Tool for building the gradients:

http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/

Note - doesn't work in IE11! I'll post an update when I find out why, since its supposed to.

Lyric

Answer 3

use

background:red url(../images/samle.jpg) no-repeat left top;

Prayerful

Answer 4

And to add to this answer, make sure the image itself has a transparent background.

Foxing

Good addition. This happened to me when I used a .jpg instead of a .png – Kantor

Don't post this as na answer better as a comment. – Scenarist

Did you see from when this is?! Practically the founding generations. It was wild west, no rules. You newbies got it all served on a golden platter ;-) – Foxing

Answer 5

Actually there is a way you can use a background color with a background image. In this case, the background part will be filled with that specified color instead of a white/transparent one.

In order to achieve that, you need to set the background property like this:

.bg-image-with-color {
    background: url("example.png") no-repeat, #ff0000;
}

Note the comma and the color code after no-repeat; this sets the background color you wish.

I discovered this in this YouTube video, however I'm not affiliated with that channel or video in any means.

Deoxidize

I doubted this, was surprised it works pretty well. Will need to look up the compatibility for it though.! +1 – Reed

Nice! I built on this, for an even more complex example: repeat 0/5px 5px linear-gradient(90deg,rgba(0,0,0,.05) 1px,transparent 0), repeat 0/5px 5px linear-gradient(180deg,rgba(0,0,0,.05) 1px,transparent 0), #eee (this creates a repeating grid pattern; inspect this in the dev-tools "Styles" panel to see exactly what it is doing) – Meander

Answer 6

Here's an example of using background-image and background-color together:

.box {
  background-image: repeating-linear-gradient( -45deg, rgba(255, 255, 255, .2), rgba(255, 255, 255, .2) 15px, transparent 15px, transparent 30px);
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  margin: 10px 0 0 10px;
  display: inline-block;
}

<div class="box" style="background-color:orange"></div>
<div class="box" style="background-color:green"></div>
<div class="box" style="background-color:blue"></div>

Soil

Answer 7

Make half of the image transparent so the background colour is seen through it.

Else simply add another div taking up 50% up the container div and float it either left or right. Then apply either the image or the colour to it.

Liuka

This assumes your background image was as big as the containing div. – Liuka

Answer 8

Gecko has a weird bug where setting the background-color for the html selector will cover up the background-image of the body element even though the body element in effect has a greater z-index and you should be able to see the body's background-image along with the html background-color based purely on simple logic.

Gecko Bug

Avoid the following...

html {background-color: #fff;}
body {background-image: url(example.png);}

Work Around

body {background-color: #fff; background-image: url(example.png);}

Harwell

Answer 9

Hello everyone I tried another way to combine background-image and background-color together:

HTML

<article><canvas id="color"></canvas></article>

CSS

article {
  height: 490px;
  background: url("Your IMAGE") no-repeat center cover;
  opacity:1;
} 

canvas{
  width: 100%; 
  height: 490px; 
  opacity: 0.9;
}

JAVASCRIPT

window.onload = init();

var canvas, ctx;

function init(){
  canvas = document.getElementeById('color'); 
  ctx = canvas.getContext('2d'); 
  ctx.save();  
  ctx.fillstyle = '#00833d'; 
  ctx.fillRect(0,0,490,490);ctx.restore();
}

Please let me know if it worked for you Thanks

Swanhildas

Answer 10

background:url(directoryName/imageName.extention) bottom left no-repeat; 
background-color: red;

Phinney

How/Why does this answer the question? Please elaborate by editing your answer. – Tracy

Two lines like this are unnecessary. It can be put in one declaration. See other examples here on the page. background: red url(directoryName/imageName.extention) bottom left no-repeat; – Gustavogustavus