Need some help with image transparency.

[Sailor Arcana]

Okay, so I'm trying to make a widget for Yahoo! Widget Engine (http://widgets.yahoo.com/). A sort of Suzuran desktop mascot with a mini-notepad...

So I find a suitable image of Suzuran...
http://www.hidebehind.com/D316C437

Resize it...
http://www.hidebehind.com/AA648B73

But when I colored the empty spaces in (to make them transparent) I get these ugly jagged edges on the edge of the image...
http://www.hidebehind.com/AC9C6D2B

Could someone attempt to "clean up" the edges so they don't show up as much? I want this image to work on different colored backgrounds so it won't look ugly. I would appreciate it very much, and reputation will certainly be given.

[gvbn]

does it have to be gif?
or does it support png and
alpha transparency?

[Shragei]

What you are doing is cutting around the lines and leaving them intact. This will cause the old background to show through. You need to cut into the lines to remove remove the old background. The lines will become thiner but the old background wont be there. You should cut out the drawing before you resize it.

[Sailor Arcana]

I'm not sure. I would think both would work.

EDIT:
I think I know what you're on about, Shragei, but I can't really tell what's part of the image and what's part of the background since some of the colors are close.

[Atachi]

5min in fireworks

- 32bit png

-edit-
if you want to make it a gif, use alpha-transparency instead of index... otherwise it won't work

[Sailor Arcana]

Thanks, Atachi! If I resize this in GIMP, will it keep all the cleanliness? I had the image at half the size of the original.

[Atachi]

it will - if gimp does what it's supposed to do (as in bilinear/bicubic resize) and does support exporting alpha-transparency instead of index-transparency (32bit png is always alpha; 8bit png and gif do support both of them [a program should have a option for that on export])