Anyone with Photoshop 7.0 please read this.

I installed the targa patch for my Photoshop and now all of my targa files are messed up. Can someone who hasnt installed that patch send me thier Targa.8BI file in thier Photoshop 7.0/Plug-Ins/File Formats/ folder.

Send it to [email]StickFigs@comcast.net[/email] and post here if you sent it. Thanks.

I cant find my old file because I just overwrited it with the new one. And on top of that I can't even upgrade to 7.1 because it says it cant find Photoshop. Somethings messed up here...

messed up how exactly? TGA behavior is a bit different after the patch but they still work just fine. Can you describe the problem you're having?

Well whenever I open a targa file in photoshop now it has no transparency and a few of them are all messed up in color or etc.

and now whenever I try to save a file as a .tga it has no transparency at all, it's just white.

And this prevents me from finishing that animated texture thing...


EDIT: After looking at all of my TGA files It seems like images messing up isnt a problem, its only the transparency not working. and all once transparent edges are all pixelated.

Targa files worked fine before I installed the patch, I was thinking it would HELP if I installed the patch but it was just the opposite.

As long as your TGA files have their alpha channels they'll still work exactly the same. The difference is just in how Photoshop displays the 0 alpha areas of the image. Color information can be stored in areas where the alpha is set to 0 even though it won't show in any application that displays the image according to the alpha. The way it works after the patch is how photoshop had always been until 7.0. The changed behavior was a huge problem for a lot of people like animators and compositors who might need BOTH the alpha channel and the color info from the transparent areas.

Here's Adobe's explanation of why they changed it to the 7.0 pre-patch way...

"The Targa file format specification reserves the fourth channel of Targa files for transparency. The Photoshop 6.x Targa plug-in, however, uses the fourth channel for an alpha channel.

The Photoshop 7.0 Targa plug-in conforms to the Targa file format specification, reserving the fourth channel for transparency. Consequently, the Photoshop 7.0 Targa plug-in doesn't let you save an alpha channel with Targa files."

Considering it had never worked that way (the 4th channel was always used for alpha) this pissed a huge number of people off (me included) so they changed it back to the way it was before.

Check to see if your TGA files have an alpha channel in the channels palette. If not, press alt-shift when you open the image. That will recapture the alpha channel. Then just resave as a 32 bit TGA.

If that doesn't work then try this... select the background color and do a "save selection" as a new channel. It will automatically become the alpha channel. Then resave as a 32 bit TGA.

The way it works in the version you have now is much more flexible and better than the default 7.0 way. It just takes some getting used to.

Thanks for that explanation, I didn't really get it before... but I cant figure out when to use Alt+Shift and I cant use the save selection method because I have multiple layers with semi-transparent colors (feather effects basically) and I dont really have just one transparent color.

go to file open, select the file in the list, then hold down alt-shift when you press the open button

Ok... I did that and there's an alpha channel now... but there's still no transparency... This is very confusing...

EDIT:
Ok... Right now I have deleted all the lighting tga's (the thing I'm trying to get transparency to work with) and I have the .psd so I can start over... So... where do I start the transparency process?

hehe, the alpha channel IS the transparency! It just doesn't display the transparency in the document in photoshop (the point being that you have far greater control that way... you can paint color without changing the transparency). You just needed to resave them with the alpha. They'd have worked properly in SL.

Starting with your layered PSD here's what you need to do... if there is stuff in the bottom layer that you need, duplicate that layer and then turn off visibility on the bottom layer (you'll see the checkerboard background). Adjust layer visibility until you're seeing what you want to save, then do file: save as: tga: 32 bit.

I can't give you an "always do it this way" because it all depends on what you're starting with. The benefit of using an alpha channel instead of a tranparency channel is that you can do a lot more with it. In the default 7.0 behavior, anywhere you paint you change the transparency which is very limiting. With an alpha channel, transparency is defined with a grayscale channel that you can directly paint on to alter the transaprency, and it's completely seperate from the color channels.

You don't need to create an alpha channel by painting one though. You just adjust the visibility of the layers until you have the checkerboard showing how you want it, then do save as 32 bit TGA and it will create the alpha channel during the save.

Hope that all makes sense!

I'm not sure what you mean by bottom layer... and what on the alpha channel represents transparent? black or white? Thanks.

the bottom layer is the layer at the bottom of the layer palette (background layer).

In the alpha channel black is transparent, white is opaque, and any shade of gray inbetween is semi-transparent based on it's grayscale value.

Ok I tried this...

I merged all things in .psd to one layer, now its all the things on one layer and I can see transparency still. Then I created another layer and filled it with green and changed its belnding options to opacity 0% so you couldnt see it...

then I saved that as a .tga and opened the .tga and saw that the alpha layer was there so I uploaded it to SL and its STILL has white instead of transparent, what did I do wrong?




EDIT: Is there a way that I can allow myself to see transparency when editing a .TGA? this is all very confusing an difficult the way it's been changed to.

Thanks so much Chip, I finally figured it out

And I finally finished my animated texture

Yay! Glad you figured it out. Alpha channels are a bit more work than transparency, but once you get used to it you won't want to go back to the other way. Congrats on your first animated texture

Next time you start a new document, leave the background layer blank and do all your work on layers above it. You can keep the background layer's visibility turned off if you prefer to see the checkerboard background.