Tattoo Undershirt, etc. How?

I should preface by saying that I don't have much of an interest in trying to make a tattoo business or anything like that. There's already plenty of that on SL. I just want to make my av a custom tattoo.

Since the skin I have (and like the most) is not modifiable, I need to use an undershirt/underwear/socks sort of thing for the tattoo.

I've only been able to find 3 tutorials on how to make tattoos (Dani McGough's GIMP one, Nichole Eschler's and Amber Stonecutter's). Unfortunately, I don't want to download the GIMP (long story), the pictures that go with Amber's tut in this forum--I just get an error page for all of her accompanying linked photos.

I've had the most help with Eschler's, but even following step-by-step with the tutorial, I get a different result in my version of Photoshop (7) than what her image shows. And, I'll be honest, I'm not fluent in Photoshop.

The part I am confused on mostly is the transparency and alpha channels.

Is there any classes or tutorials out there that could help me with this? Honestly, I've spent many, many hours looking at tutorials, trying to follow, and ending up with something completely different. I thought, "Maybe I should just ask. Maybe someone will be able to explain it to me".

Anyway, if there is anyone out there that knows of a tutorial, class, or can give me some info, it would be appreciated.

Fallon

I use Photoshop 7.0 as well. The way I save final images is to make sure the background is blank (it would look like a gray and white checkered pattern), then choose Save As through the File menu and choose a TGA format and save it. It will likely say something about saving it as a copy but that's fine (just be sure you save your work file as a PSD so you can move around layers again if you need).

So far as tattoos go I would imagine you just need to lower the opacity on the tattoo layer in Photoshop. Find the layers window (mine is on the right side of the screen) and click the appropriate layer. At the top right of the little layer window is a percentage number for its opacity. Change it from 100% to a lower number and you'll see your layer become translucent.

There is a great sticky about using transparency and alphachannels at the top of this forum.

Inworld you just use the appearence mode to get the tattoo in a undershirt layer although sometimes it is also usefull to get it on a jacket and a normal shirt too. Especcially when you want to wear your tattoo with a bikini wich is most of the time an undies layer and that will risk you to get naked (don't ask why I know this for sure

*AE*