PSP and 32 bit - help

Hey all. I've been a PSP user for years and love it. I've seen everyone say it can be used, but mine doesn't have an option for 32 bit color. I d/l'ed PSP 9, the most recent incarnation, and it doesn't have it either. What am I missing here? Thanks!

Kat

32-bit simply means 24-bit color plus an 8-bit alpha channel. When you work with a 24-bit color image that uses transparency, you're really working on a 32-bit image.

Does the alpha channel have to be its own layer? My alpha channel is showing up as visible

When you save as TGA, PSP won't create an alpha channel for you; you have to do that manually. The best way to do this is to generate a mask from the image based on opacity. Save the mask as an alpha channel (you can just use the default name), then delete the mask without merging it. Now you can save the TGA, and your alpha data will be preserved.

Note that this applies to PSP 7. I don't know if they've changed things since then.

Just a suggestion but is the computer video set to 32 bit color? Also the difference between 24 and 32 but color is negligable espesially when converted to jpg format textures. PSP is perfectly suited to SL graphics because of its simplicity and large number of features. I prefere it over Photoshop for the realatively simple tasks needed for SL.

Your video setting should only have an effect on how things are displayed on your monitor, not on the actual data you're working with.

Also, 24 and 32 bit color are identical except for the fact that 32 bit color has alpha-channel support. They both use 8 bits for red, 8 bits for green, and 8 bits for blue.

This is still the same in PSP 9. If you want to see what your alpha channels look like, as far as I can tell, you either need to look at it in "delete alpha channels" mode, or load a mask layer based on the alpha channel.

Hi,

I'm having a horrendous time generating any sort of alpha information in TGA files with Paint Shop Pro 9 (the very latest version).

I tried exactly what was mentioned, creating a mask from opacity, saving it as an alpha channel, deleting the mask without merging, but I still get a TGA with no alpha information whatsoever.

I believe PSP9 is screwed on it's ability to do TGAs with alpha-channel-information...

Could someone with PSP9 provide an exact step-by-step guide to creating just the simplest TGA with alpha information? I.e. click 'create mask', select 'from source opacity' radio button.. etc. etc? Since I don't believe it, which is incredibly annoying, since I love PSP, usually....

Thanks
Jack

OK, I figured out one big problem ppl may be having with the PSP alpha channels. For some reason, the templates provided by SL (I think because they are not raster layers) do not work. What you need to do is copy each layer and paste them into a new image as raster layers. Then save as a .psp file. Use this as your working template. Hope this helps!

Kat

This simple exercise may get you started...

Start with a new image. Create a large red dot in the middle of it. Select the magic wand. Click outside the red dot. You should see dotted lines around all of the background. Now goto selection menu and choose "invert selection". You will now notice that the dotted lines surround the red dot. Go to selection menu again and chose "save selection to alpha channel".

Now save the image as a TGA file and upload it to secondlife. The red dot will be visiblae and everything else will be transparent.

This red dot is absolutely worthless, and cost you $L10, but it should give you a great idea of how alphas work in PSP. I learned by trial and error, and this is very similar to the project that finally produced my first alpha.

Good luck!

Nope, that still doesn't work.

Are you SURE that was under Paint Shop Pro 9 (i.e. the latest version, released within the last couple of months)?

The .tga file simply doesn't have any alpha information..

Yes, Jack I know it works in 9. There is an extra step that must be taken here. Create the red dot in the black square. Now select the dot. Then go to selections > mask > SHOW selection. For some reason when I inverted and tried hide selection, it didn't work. Now save the selection to an alpha channel. Make sure you have only 1 alpha channel, as PSP will only use the one on top if multiples are created. In PSP this extra step of creating the mask is mandatory. Hope ya get it

Kat

There is no 'selections -> mask' menu... I don't know what you mean about show/hide selection either, I can't find it.
Would you mind going through it step-by-step? Thanks for all the help so far, I would really appreciate getting this working

Hi, Jack. Sorry, was still working off an older version of PSP because it has better tablet support. In PSP 9, once you have selected the area you do /not/ want to be transparent go to Layers > New Mask Layer > Show selection. After you create this mask, go to Layers > Load/Save Mask > Save Mask to Alpha Channel. Good luck!

Kat

I have been using PSP to do alphas since version 7, and I have the latest version and have used it with no problem. Here is step by step how I create alphas.

1. I start with a transparent layer as my bottom layer. If I am starting out with a preexisting image, I promote the background to a layer, then select and delete it so I have transparency as the bottom layer.

2. I then delete any parts of the image I want to remove using the selection tools, or create what I want on from scratch on various layers, with the transparent parts left transparent.

3. When I am ready to create the alpha, I select Layers-->New Mask Layer-->From Image

4. Under From Image, I select Source Opacity. This creates an alpha based on all the transparent portions of the image.

5. I then click on the mask layer and go to Layers-->
Load/Save Mask--->Save Mask to Alpha Channel

6. I save the mask to the alpha channel (if the image has a preexisting one already, you should save it with the same name as the existing one, this will overwrite it, as TGA only supports 1 alpha channel).

7. I then output the file as TGA, and import into SL with no problems.

8. One additional step you can take, after saving to alpha channel is to go to the transparent background layer, and fill it with the darkest color in your image. This helps to create a sharper edge on the alpha and mitigate the halo effect.

Hope this helps

ty ty ty, that was a big help! have a Q for you - how do you deal with semi-transparency? I can't figure out how to get the shades of grey included in the alpha channel. Thanks again

Kat

Semi transparency is easy. Put the part that you want to be semi-transparent on its own layer, then adjust the opacity of the layer in the layer pallet to under 100%. When you follow the steps for creating a normal transparency, this layer will be created with partial transparency. Note that in SL, it looks much more transparent than it does in PSP when adjusting the layer, so adjust the layer accordingly (ie..make it less transparent than you think it needs to be, because SL will add some).