To work with transparent Bitmaps, you will always need a picture and a mask of that picture . Save these pictures to your harddisk, and load the first picture in a PictureBox, named Picture1, and the mask in a PictureBox, named Picture2. Then, add a third PictureBox to your form. We'll first copy the mask to that third PictureBox and then we'll copy the normal picture. Private Declare Function BitBlt Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hDestDC As Long, ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long, ByVal nWidth As Long, ByVal nHeight As Long, ByVal hSrcDC As Long, ByVal xSrc As Long, ByVal ySrc As Long, ByVal dwRop As Long) As Integer Private Sub Form_Load() 'set the graphic mode to 'persistent' Picture1.AutoRedraw = True Picture2.AutoRedraw = True Picture3.AutoRedraw = True 'API uses pixels Picture1.ScaleMode = vbPixels Picture2.ScaleMode = vbPixels 'do the transparent blitting BitBlt Picture3.hDC, 0, 0, Picture2.ScaleWidth, Picture2.ScaleHeight, Picture2.hDC, 0, 0, vbSrcAnd BitBlt Picture3.hDC, 0, 0, Picture1.ScaleWidth, Picture1.ScaleHeight, Picture1.hDC, 0, 0, vbSrcPaint End Sub