Pixelation on edges of clothing - Help!

Hi there, i am having huge problems getting rid of the ugly pixelation i keep getting on the edge of my clothing. I have seen some clothes in SL that have lovely tidy edges so i know its possible!
I use Paint Shop Pro 9 and have always used the point to point selection tool to define the edges of my clothing and then fill with the texture i am using.
I have tried dodging, burning and then using the soften brush - i have also tried this method using gassian blur instead of the soften brush.
Then i tried drawing in the edges with the paintbrush but when i came to select it to put in the alpha channel the selection seemed very loose so i figured it wouldnt help with the pixelation at all!

I hope u can follow what im waffling on about! lol
Anyway - it is driving me nuts - so if anyone has any suggestions or - even better - an idiot proof guide to creating tidy edges on clothing i would be eternally grateful! x

Design clothes at a higher resolution, like 1024 or 2048 on a side, and reduce it to 512 x 512 with your graphics app before importing. The anti aliasing and reduction provided by your graphics app will make those edges appear smooth and sharp.

Or just use anti-aliasing directly. What I usually do is select an area, modify the selection to have an anti-aliased edge (in PSP 8 this is in the Selection menu -- Selection > Modify > Shape Based Anti-alias), and then use the fill tool. You should also be able to tick the little "anti-alias" box when using a selection tool, in which case you don't have to bother with adding that via the pull down menu.

Keep in mind, though, that some jagged edges are caused by the avatar mesh. There are places on the avatar where things stretch and distort badly, and no amount of anti-aliasing is going to keep edges from looking jagged.

Thanks a lot for your help guys - will certainly try both those things

Hi again - i tried both of the suggestions posted but to be honest its not helping much.
I tried designing at 1024 and 2048 and then reducing it to 512 but it seems to make it worse?
Also my selection tool already has anti-aliasing selected.

Thank you so much for your help but if anyone has any other suggestions i am willing to try anything (or i might start crying! lol)

do you have a pic of the item with the white lines, it might be that there is just white still left around it

are the layers rasterized? if you dont do that then its all wierd and stuff

(yes i'm highly technical ^^)

What I do is smooth or blur at 400 to 500% at 1 to 2 pixels.

Hi yes i believe the layers are raster layers (will get my husband to check for me - am not highly technical! lol)

And sorry Thunderclap - could you explain a little more as im not too clear on what you mean - do u mean have the size at 400? sorry! having a blond day

Sorry I meant 400%. You need to be able to see the individual pixels. That way when you smooth or blur it will turn one into about 20 spreading it out. Almost remember if you are get the white halo to add the same color background before you save to tga

thanks so much Thunderclap

still do not understand how the background fixes that problem

and when you say same color, same color as what?

(I sometimes get that white halo and end up cleaning it up pixel by pixel

Hmmm. I think that to solve the pixelization problem you do have to work in a higher resolution and use vector paths and shapes as much as possible.

As far as the white halo problem, two fixes (in Photoshop):

Fix 1- Make the background of your image the same color and pattern as your clothing - this will prevent any bleedthrough of a black or white background. The alpha channel is your cutout of the clothing - the image of the clothes plus the background is what the alpha channel shows through. So if your material doesn't go past the alpha channel edges - you will get white or black halos

2 - Since the alpha channel is what SL uses to create the transparencies make sure that the clothing layer overlaps the edges of the Alpha - you can do this by using the Match Outlines V SO layer. I usually create a base alpha based on the "Match Outlines V SO" layer on Robin's Templates. Don't use the layer mask, create a new selection by using your magic wand to select the area around this image, once you have done that - "shift-ctrl-I" to invert your selection, open up the channels palette and then create a new alpha channel and hit the delete key (oh yeah make sure you have default B/W colors). Open the layers palette again Ctrl-click your final clothing layer, open the channels palette and cross select by using "shift-ctrl-alt" and clicking on your alpha channel. Create a NEW alpha channel and hit the delete key or fill with white (whichever works for you). Delete the old alpha channel since this is the working alpha.

I know confusing - but I have found this method the best for creating absolutely perfect alpha channels - and honestly I never have halo problems.