saving alpha's with Photoshop 7.0?

For the life of me I can't get Photoshop 7 (under WinXP) to save .tga's with Alpha channels turned on. Under the "Save Options" there's a ticker box for it, but it's unavailable for me and has an exclamation mark next to it noted to something along the lines of "must be saved as a copy to use this"... I don't have a "Save a Copy" option, only Save/Save As.../Save for Web. Saving as a .bmp didn't seem to work either.

Does anyone know what I can do to make my .tga's save with alpha channels?

Hi,
I think I can help you by walking you threw this if you IM me in world.

You're going in the right direction.

Just save as a .tga, don't worry about when it says save as a copy, hit the save button, then a small dialog box will come up....choose 32-bit (must be 32-bit to save the alpha channels) and hit ok. And there you have it, a texture with transparency.

That should work, post if you have any problems with it.

you also need to flatten the layers before saving as 32 bit tga file. This is why you r getting "save as copy"


--Kendra

I've done both of those already and still no go. I'll try yet again. I'm use to it.

EDIT: Still no good. I've opened .png/.jpg/.gif/.bmp/.psd/.tga/.tiff and drawn a line through each just to see if I get a "Save as copy" option in my File menu but I don't. I hope I don't have to downgrade to Photoshop 5 just to make this work. Aye carumba.

Hello

I had this problem too with photoshop7... apparently this version does have a problem with targa file saving and you need to download the patch ( 7.1 i think)

alternatively you can get around this problem by doing a vector mask instead of the alpha channel for the transparency


Rhapzody

Yes, the patch is 7.0.1 I believe -- make sure you upgrade to it. Also, even if you flatten the image, make sure you only have ONE alpha channel. As I recall, if you have multiple channels it will give you the save as copy as well.

You can also get around this by going to Image, Select and setting your image to RGB. I have this problem every time I modify a GIF for uploading.

Rose

This and the post below it sounds like it'll work. I'll try these when I get home tonight. Thanks.

Edit: Just my luck the update can't find my Photoshop 7.0 folder even when I specify it. lol ...*sigh*... I guess I'll reinstall and see if that works.

Grrrr.... even after a reinstall of Photoshop 7.0, the update doesn't want to work.

I used PS 5.5 at work and was able to do it fine, so I guess I'll revert back to that one.

I'm able to save targa files with transparency in 7.0 without patching. Probably the simplest method is to create the (partial) image on a layer, delete the background layer, and then save as a 32-bit .tga. This has the tendency to create white outlining where the edge of the partial image anti-aliases around the edge. Another is to play with alphas...a little hunting around this forum will find you a good guide or two for that.

Saving as a copy isn't harmful, since it just saves as you normally would without changing the working file. For instance, it allows you to save an image as a jpeg or bitmap without flattening the project you have open in Photoshop. Occasionally helpful, but I find it annoying because I keep having to delete the word "copy" from the destination filename.

I still use Photoshop 7.0 and here's my process for creating transparent tga's. You may have to go to Window---> Layers, Channels, etc when i refer to click on Layer Tab, Channels tab and so forth.

1. Seperate out the sections you want to be transparent. You can do this using the Magic Wand tool (i usually start out at 35 Tolerance depending on how many pixels you want to sep are similiar) or the Eraser. Futz with the Brush sizes to get something you can work with easily (i must admit that I have a Wacom pen tablet so life is easier using Erase if you have that). For Magic Wand you can choose to Select Contiguous Areas or use the Default which selects areas that aren't next to each other. This makes a big diff sometimes. See what works.

2. If you're not working in a photoshop file (.psd) but are still in the original .jpg, hit CRTL+SHIFT+I to choose the Select Inverse to Select the part of the image that's not transparent. Copy.

3. CTRL+N to create a new document. Name it something logical. MyFrontGate1.psd for example. Make your BackgroundTransparent.

4. CTRL +V to paste what you Inverse Selected into the new Document.

5. You might want to Expand the Canvas (not the Image!) by about 105% (height and width) to give yourself a little room later on to work. Photoshop creates new documents at the pasted dimensions of the Selections but sometimes cuts things off a tweensy eensy bit. Making you say later, WTF!

6. Now create a new Layer under the Layer you just pasted.

7. FILL this with some contrasting color. I choose horribly bright Reds or Greens. Make sure you select the new blank layer. This will allow you to temporarily see any spots you miss in your pervious selection process and...

8. reselect the Layer with the stuff you want to work with. Choose the Eraser tool (Photoshop also has the Magic Eraser Tool which can make life easier or harder depending on the context) or Magic Wand stuff again deleting as you go.

Oh joy! SHIFT + Left Click adds to the Selections. ALT+Left Click takes away (i think. confusion. or is it CTRL +left click).

The History Tab is your friend. Mess up? Open up History and Select the item/action where it all fell apart...hehe. or CTRL+ Z to undo the last action.

9. Once you have everything you want to be Transparent either Selected or Deleted, you can either: Expand the Selection by 1-2 pixels and hit Delete. This is good if the image is a bit "fuzzy" but sometimes has disasterous results. You can use the same techinque of expanding by one or two pixels to Blur (see Filters menu at the top of Photoshop). That softens out the edges in a regular way, but once again, isn't always the best choice.


8. Now, select the area you want transparent (checking the box above to use All Layers. the red Background Layer comes in handy here).

9. turn off the Eye on the Background Layer. No more swful red/green background! It's a beautiful transparent now (actually checkerboard pattern).

10. Go to the Channels Tab

11. You'll see Layers labeled Red, Green, Blue (if you're working with a standard digital image, Print uses CMYK). Find a little button on the bottom of the menu that says Save Selection as Channel when you roll your mouse over it. click on it.

12. now make a little Eye (so we can see it) next to the Alpha 1 channel. All Channels will have Eyes now next to them.

13. The image will now have a red pinkish area where the part of the image that you do want to show will be. You can think of this as the "no go" zone for Transparency.

14. Now, choose Save (you should save the .psd file anyways, periodically as you go) if you haven't already and then Save As. Choose .tga. Save as 32-bit. Delete the "copy" part of the name if you don't want that. Avoid using spaces (Use underscores instead) and other "restricted characters" in names, such as all the symbols that you get when you hit Shift plus any number at the top of your keyboard. Don't use periods, commas, backslashes either. Actually, don't use anything that's not a letter or number. except for underscores " _ ". Try to use "camel case" to make things easier to read. thisFileIsNamed.tga It's a programming thing. Trust me, it'll make your life easier in the future...

15. Now you're all set to Upload!

I hope that wasn't as clear as mud...

Great tips, Alex. That should save me a bit of frustration when I get around to designing alpha textures.

Okay, I hope I can make this make sense. I had the same problem. It happened when I was using the template I downloaded from the website. I solved it by deleting the extra alpha channel that originally shows up as Alpha 1 when I clicked over to channels. I just dragged it to the trash icon and I could save it as a TGA with the alpha channel checked.

I hope this helps.