Paint Shop Pro X and Alpha Channel

I have read all the tutorials that I can find but I still don't understand if there is a way to do this. I used to have the last version of PSP before Corel bought it, and it was possible to directly edit the alpha channel. Now with this newfangled thing it seems the alpha channel is created indirectly. Is there any way to fine-tune the alpha channel after it has been created to place transparent pixels exactly where I want them? I'm trying to work with a finicky lace pattern and I'm about to climb the walls. TIA,

Katie

The best thing to do is to use a layer mask as a proxy for what will in the end become your alpha channel. Put all your layers into a group, and then apply the mask to the group. Edit the mask for transparency by painting black, white, and gray, exactly as you would edit a channel. When you're done, save the mask to alpha channel, delete the mask, export to TGA, and upload to SL. If you need to edit the alpha later, you can make a new mask from the alpha channel, and then re-save it to alpha when you're done.

It's round-about, sure, but it works. I have no idea why PSP doesn't have a channels palette. It's very counter intuitive.

Thanks! I think sooner or later I might actually become a competent user of these graphics programs in spite of myself. In the meanwhile, I'm grateful for the advice of people who know what they're doing.

Katie

Wait--you delete the mask after you save the mask to the alpha channel? I haven't been doing that. Perhaps that's why I can't go back and edit old files that use transparencies...

(I use PSP

Deleting the mask or not wouldn't make a difference for editing later. It's just a good step to help prevent haloing. TGA's are layerless, so layer masks can't exist in them. Not deleting the mask before exporting to TGA will result in the TGA having a white background, which in turn will produce a white halo around the opaque parts of the image. Deleting the mask, on the other hand, will allow you to put a proper background in place, so you can prevent the halo from forming.

Now, what exactly do you mean by you're unable to edit? Are you unable to re-open the files after they've been saved? Are you able to open them, but they're read-only, so you can't change them? Are you able to open them, and change them, but you're not sure how to change the alpha? Something else?

Please give a little more information, and I'm sure we can solve whatever the problem is.

The very bottom layer should be solid black or the main color of the article of clothing, right?

Katie

To put it simply, yes. Using black is kind of cheat just because SL in particular tends not to display black halos very prominently. For a more universal solution, the best thing to do is to bleed the colors from the edges of the garment well past the edges of the opaque part of the image. That way, the halo will be the same color as the subject, which will make it impossible to see. There are many methods to do this. See the transparency guide for more info.

I have problems with reusing PSP files. I can construct a PSP file from scratch--tranparent bottom layer, layers for design and then a mask layer created from the image. I save both the PSP file, and a TGA file. The latter I then can successfully upload to SL with transparencies.

BUT--if I go back to the old PSP file and delete the mask, make alterations, then make a new mask, the next mask does not work. Instead I get solid black where the transparency should be. I have PSP8, but I uploaded the month PSP11 demo and had similar results (oddly, this time the background was black).

Right now, to make clothes, I have to copy the necessary template layers one at a time into a new file. The new file is then good for one article of clothing. This is beyond awkward, to be perfectly honest, so I'd be happy if you could set me straight and tell me how better to do this.

It sounds like what's happening is when you make your second mask, and save it to a channel, you're not deleting the old alpha channel first, so you're ending up with two. Having too many channels will result in having no transparency.

Before you save the new mask to an alpha channel, delete any existing alphas by going Image -> Delete Alpha Channel. In the dialog that pops up, make sure "delete all alpha channels" is turned on, and click Ok. Once that's been done, you should be able to save your new mask to alpha, and everything should be fine.

If only PSP had a channels palette, this stuff would be so much easier to catch. I really don't get why it doesn't have one.

Thanks Chosen! I'll let you know how this works out.

I hope this helps somewht with your texturing.
Thing i do is simply save any psp designs first as a psp file and secondly as a tga for downloading into SL.
This way you can ungroup the layers in the psp file and edit them in any way need be.
Let me know if this helps

Thanks Chosen. Considering I used PSP 10, knowing I needed to delete the mask after saving it to an alpha channel is important. Hopefully, we can get channels in 12?

I will not buy another Paint Shop Pro version unless they do. And I can't afford Photoshop. The hassles with working around this graphics program, and the everyday hassles in SL itself, are rapidly making me seriously question how long I am going to be here. The small time user is obviously not the Lindens' priority. In fact it seems like they *wish* we would all just go away. They're forgetting that we're the renters, mall customers and casino patrons who keep most of their big island buyers in business. The whole situation right now sure doesn't make me feel very creative. Why should I even try to develop a clothing line if nobody is going to be here to buy it? Especially if I have to beat my head against a wall with this darn stubborn graphics program before I can do it?

Katie

Kathryn, while I can appreciate your frustration with PSP's lack of a channels palette, I can't understand why you're directing you anger over it toward Linden Lab. They have nothing to do with PSP. It's hardly their fault (or even their concern) how good, bad, or affordable programs are that are not made by them.

For the record, they didn't choose TGA because it's some exclusive thing that only Photoshop users can handle well; they chose it because it's been the industry standard format for texturing for 20 years. Not to have gone with it would have been a huge mistake. It's unfortunate that PSP, an otherwise pretty good raster editor, happens to employ a round about method of editing one of the four channels the TGA format utilizes, but that's got nothing to do with Linden Lab.

As you may or may not already have experienced, PSP's missing channels palette handicaps its users far beyond just little frustrations with TGA's or anything that has to do specifically with Second Life. A great many of the established techniques for editing photos and other images can't be done without direct access to channels. Why the original makers of PSP saw fit not to include a channels palette, and why Corel, who really does know better than that, keeps not adding one is really beyond me. It's the biggest thing that keeps PSP from being considered a "professional" tool.

In any case, it's pretty clear that Linden Lab doesn't want anyone to "go away", certainly not free account holders. If that were the case, they never would have gone with open registration, and they certainly wouldn't have done away with the $9.95 cost for creating an account. In fact, without divulging anything that might breach my NDA, I can tell you that a significant portion of the discussion at the last SL Views meeting was centered around what LL can do so a not to disrupt the private land rental business with all the upcoming changes. Trust me; they're well aware that the content consumers are the reason content creators have jobs. That's the foundation of the SL economy (and the RL economy too).

I don't want to drift off the topic of texturing too far here, but so you know, just this morning someone from the SL Views group pitched a great idea for how to replace the now defunct First Land program with a resident-run equivalent. It basically means replacing what was a "government run socialist program" with a completely "private sector" capitalist program. What could be more pro-consumer than that? The opportunities for people to make money in SL just keep growing and growing, and that can only benefit everyone.

Anyway, to get back on topic, if you've become that disenchanted with PSP, and you're not willing to spend the money on Photoshop, how about GIMP? It's completely free, so you can't argue with the price. It's a bit unconventional, and kind of hard to learn, but it is arguably the most powerful raster editor out there besides Photoshop. And it does have a channels palette.

I didn't mean it that way. LL has nothing to do with Corel. It's two separate issues that are affecting me at the same time.

Specific to LL I was referring to the ongoing problems that have been detailed in so many other threads, I don't want to add yet another list of SL's commonly known permanent issues in this thread too.



I really, really hope it works, because the abuse of the First Land program and its resulting demise were one of the SL issues that really had me bummed out when I made my earlier post. In RL, I have little faith in the private sector to replace government programs. That's my decades of experience with RL politics affecting my judgment, I won't say just how many decades but let's just say I've seen a number of administrations come and go. I've dealt with struggling programs originating on both sides of the aisle. No matter how messed up the gov't programs were, it always turned into a real charlie foxtrot whenever things got handed off to private contractors. That's all I'll say on that subject, though. SL is a completely different venue from RL, thank gods, with an entirely different set of forces driving the economy, because avatars don't need to eat or get medical care. I'll tie a knot and hold on, and see how it plays out here.

I do hope LL realizes that the ability to use the tools and make something that is "yours" is one of the major draws of SL to newbies. There isn't a combat system here and the role-playing is of a completely different sort, so it doesn't compare to other RPGs out there in those regards. You can meet friends and get as friendly as you like in private chat just about anywhere. The only thing you /can/ do here that you can't do there, or at least nearly as well, is make really unique, creative widgets. (Or collect widgets that other people have made.) Having a place that is "all theirs" to display the widgets they have made or acquired is really important to a lot of people. That's one big reason they will be encouraged to stay here, and continue to contribute to the economy. I hope LL knows exactly how discouraging the current land price issues are to lots of new people who aren't able to get their foot in the door.



I tried the GIMP briefly and got fed up with it because the interface was such a PITA. I was working against a deadline to get a project (unrelated to SL) out the door, and I didn't have time to play with a new program right then. I haven't tried it since. I think I will d/l the latest version and give it another shot. Since it has a channels palette, it might be worth having two graphics programs on my computer, if I can get past the unconventional controls.

BTW, "unconventional" is such a nice adjective to use in situations like this, in place of others that I might consider using. I need to remember that.

Another BTW, and please ignore this question if you find it in any way intrusive, does your name Chosen Few have anything to do with another Chosen Few who made their mark in history some fifty years ago?

Katie

Hmm, you got me curious, so I Googled "Chosen Few 1950's". I came across this article about a group of Korean War vets called "The Chosen Few". Is that what you were referring to?

I'm also aware that there is a black biker club called "The Chosen Few", which was founded in the 50's.

I'm not a black biker or a Korean War vet, so I'm afraid my name is just a name. It just seemed clever sounding at the time. As you can imagine, I'm actually pretty sick of it by now, but it's the name I'm known by. The benefits of changing it wouldn't come close to outweighing the drawbacks. If I had my druthers, I've picked up a few alts over the years with names I like a lot better, but I'm not prepared to invest the kind of time it would take to let everyone know they're me.

Yes. The Korean war was a handful of years before my time. In RL, however, I come from a family with a strong military tradition so I'm something of a military history buff. While visiting my father at the VA hospital, I had the honor of talking to one of the "Chosin Few" and listening to some of his stories. Here is a link to Wikipedia's article about the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, for anyone else who wants to know what in the heck we're talking about. The Korean War is pretty much not taught in history classes these days, because so many of the veterans of that conflict have passed, and it didn't make the impact on the national consciousness that WWII and Vietnam did. The Wikipedia article gives a little more of a historical overview to the circumstances in your article's narrative.

Katie

Virrginia, when you make the new mask, try re-naming it "Alpha Channel 1". This is how I bypass the bugger in PSP9. You'll get a popup asking if you are sure you want to do this, say Yes and your new mask will replace the previous one you had made. At least it always does on mine.

<fades back into the Shadow>