Gray out image with CSS?

Question

What's the best way (if any) to make an image appear "grayed out" with CSS (i.e., without loading a separate, grayed out version of the image)?

My context is that I have rows in a table that all have buttons in the right most cell and some rows need to look lighter than others. So I can make the font lighter easily of course but I'd also like to make the images lighter without having to manage two versions of each image.

Answer 1

Does it have to be gray? You could just set the opacity of the image lower (to dull it). Alternatively, you could create a <div> overlay and set that to be gray (change the alpha to get the effect).

• html:

  <div id="wrapper">
      <img id="myImage" src="something.jpg" />
  </div>
  

• css:

  #myImage {
      opacity: 0.4;
      filter: alpha(opacity=40); /* msie */
  }
  
  /* or */
  
  #wrapper {
      opacity: 0.4;
      filter: alpha(opacity=40); /* msie */
      background-color: #000;
  }