CSS filter: make color image with transparency white

Question

I have a colored png image with transparency. I would like to use css filter to make the whole image white but leave the transparency as it is. Is that possible in CSS?

Answer 1

To my knowledge, there is sadly no CSS filter to colorise an element (perhaps with the use of some SVG filter magic, but I'm somewhat unfamiliar with that) and even if that wasn't the case, filters are basically only supported by webkit browsers.

With that said, you could still work around this and use a canvas to modify your image. Basically, you can draw an image element onto a canvas and then loop through the pixels, modifying the respective RGBA values to the colour you want.

However, canvases do come with some restrictions. Most importantly, you have to make sure that the image src comes from the same domain as the page. Otherwise the browser won't allow you to read or modify the pixel data of the canvas.

Here's a JSFiddle changing the colour of the JSFiddle logo.

//Base64 source, but any local source will work
var src = "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAC0AAAAgCAYAAACGhPFEAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAABzhJREFUWAnNWAtwXFUZ/v9zs4GUJJu+k7tb5DFAGWO1aal1sJUiY3FQQaWidqgPLAMqYzd9CB073VodhCa7KziiFgWhzvAYQCiCD5yK4gOTDnZK2ymdZoruppu0afbu0pBs7p7f7yy96W662aw2QO/Mzj2P//Gd/5z/+89dprfzubnTN332Re+xiKawllxWucm+9O4eCi9xT8ctn45yKd3AXX1BPsu3XIiuY+K5kDmrUA7jORb5m2baLm7uscNrJr9eOF9Je8JAz9ySnFHlq9nEpG6CYx+RdJDQDtKymxT1iWZLFDUy0/kkfDUxzYVzV0hvHZLs946Gph+uBLCRmRDQdjTVwmw9DZCNMPi4KzqWbPX/sxwIu71vlrKq10HnZizwTSFZngj5f1NOx5s7bdB2LHWDEusBOD487LrX9qyd8qpnvJL3zGjqAh+pR4W4RVhu715Vv2U8PTWeQLn5YHvms4qsR4TpH/ImLfhfARvbPaGGrrjTtwjH5hFFfHcgkv5SOZ9mbvxIgwGaZl+8ULGcJ8zOsJa9R1r9B2d8v2eGb1KNieqBhLNz8ekyAoV3VAX985+FvSXEenF8lf9lA7DUUxa0HUl/RTG1EfOUQmUwwCtggDewiHmc1R+Ir/MfKJz/f9tTwn31Nf7qVxlHLR6qXwg7cHXqU/p4hPdUB6Lp55TiXwDYTsrpG12dbdY5t0WLrCSRSVjIItG0dqIAG2jHwlPTmvQdsL3Ajjg3nAq3zIgdS98ZiGV0MJZeWVJs2WNWIJK5hcLh0osuqVTxIAdi6X3w/0LFGoa+AtFMzo5kflix0gQLBiLOZmAYro84RcfSc3NKpFAcliM9eYDdjZ7QO/1mRc+CTapqFX+4lO9TQEPoUpz//anQ5FQphXdizB1QXXk/moOl/JUC7aLMDpQSHj02PdxbG9xybM60u47UjZ4bq290Zm451ky3HSi6kxTKJ9fXHQVvZJm1XTjutYsozw53T1L+2ufBGPMTe/c30M/mD3uChW+c+6tQttthuBnbqMBLKGbydI54/eFQ3b5CWa/dGMl8xFJ0D/rvg1Pjdxil+2XK5b6ZWD15lyfnvYOxTBYs9TrY5NbuUENRUo5EGtGyVUNtBwBfDjA/IDtTkiNRsdYD8O+NcVN2KUfXo3UnukvA6Z3I+mWeY++NpNoAwDvAv1Uiss7oiNBmYD+XraoO0NvnPVnvrbUsA4CcYusPgajzY2/cvN+KtOFl/6w/IWrvdTV/Ktla92KhkNcOxpwPCqm/IgLbEvteW1m4E2/d8iY9AZOXQ/7WxKq6nxq9YNT5OLF6DmAfTHT13EL3XjTk2csXk4bqX2OXWiQ73Jz49tS4N5d/oxoHLr14EzPfAf1IIlS/2oznIx1omLURhL5Qa1oxFuC8EeHb8U6I88bXCwGbuZ61jb2Jgz1XYUHb0b0vEHNWmHE9lNsjWrcmnMhNhYDNnCkmNJSFHFdzte82M1b04HgC6HrYbAPw1pFdNOc4GE334wz9qkihRAdK/0HBub/E1MkhJBiq6V8gq7Htm05OjN2C/z/jCP1xbAlCwcnsAsbdkGHF/trPIcoNrtbjFRNmoama6EgZ42SimRG5FjLHWakNwWjmirLyZpLpKH7TysghZ00OUHNTxFmK2yDNQSKlx7u0Q0GQeLtQdy4rY5zMzqVb/ccoJ/OQMEmoPWW3988to4NY8DxYf6WMDCW6ktuRvFqxmqewgguhdLCcwsic0DMA8lE7kvrYyFhBw446X2B/nRNo739/YnX9azKUXYCg9CtlvdAUyywuEB1p4gh9AzbPZc0mF8Z+sINgn0MIwiVgKcAG6rGlT86AMdqw2n8ppR63o+mveQXCFAxzX2BWD0P6pcT+g3uNlmEDV3JX4iOh1xICdWU2gGXOMXN5HfRhK4IoPxlfXQfmKf+Ajh1I+MEeHMcKzqvoxoZsHsoOXgP+fEkxbw1e2JhB0h2q9tc4OL/fAVdsdd3jnyhklmRo8qGBQXchIvMMKPW7Pt85/SM66CNmDw1mh75cHu6JWZFZxNLNSJTPIM5PuJquKEt3o6zmqyJZH4LTC7CIfTonO5Jr/B2jxIq6jW3OZVYVX4edDSD6e1BAXqwgl/I2miKp+ZayOkT0CjaJww21/2bhznio7uoiL2dQB8HdhoV++ri4AdUdtgfw789mRHspzulXzyCcI1BMVQXgL5LodnP7zFfE+N9/9yOUyedxTn/SFHWWj0ifAY1ANHUleOJRlPqdCUmbO85J1jjxUfkUkgVCsg1/uGw0n/fvFm67LT2NLTLfi98Cke8dpMGl3r9QxVRnPuPrWzaIUmsAtgas0okd6ETh7AYt5d7+BeCbhfKVcQ6CtwgJjjoiP3fdgVbcbY57/otBnxidfndvo6/67BtxUf4kztJsbMg0CJaU9QxN2FskhePQBWr7La6wvzRFarTtyoBgB4hm5M//aAMT2+/Vlfzp81/vywLMWSBN1QAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==";
var canvas = document.getElementById("theCanvas");
var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
var img = new Image;

//wait for the image to load
img.onload = function() {
    //Draw the original image so that you can fetch the colour data
    ctx.drawImage(img,0,0);
    var imgData = ctx.getImageData(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
    
    /*
    imgData.data is a one-dimensional array which contains 
    the respective RGBA values for every pixel 
    in the selected region of the context 
    (note i+=4 in the loop)
    */
    
    for (var i = 0; i < imgData.data.length; i+=4) {
			imgData.data[i] = 255; //Red, 0-255
			imgData.data[i+1] = 255; //Green, 0-255
			imgData.data[i+2] = 255; //Blue, 0-255
			/* 
			imgData.data[i+3] contains the alpha value
			which we are going to ignore and leave
			alone with its original value
			*/
    }
    ctx.clearRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height); //clear the original image
    ctx.putImageData(imgData, 0, 0); //paint the new colorised image
}

//Load the image!
img.src = src;

body {
    background: green;
}