This file will end your Photoshop alpha channel woes

Thanks! Been looking for this for awhile, I've found if I simply moved the old plug-in file one directory up I have the option of two targa in the saving window so I can still easily work with both, though finding which is which is a pain .

Thank you so much FallingWater for posting the targa file here for Photoshop.... I'm just now trying to learn how to use Photoshop CS for making clothing and those transparent backgrounds were giving me a pure fit..... this makes it so very easy.... no more frustration and pulling my hair out here....... This was a very thoughtful item for you to share!!!!! --- Anna Adamant (an extremely grateful (SLer...lol)

thanks babycakes you are the greatest!

Thanks Fox

bump! too good to be left behind!

I thought this was not the way you were suppposed to do it with PS CS2.

Free bump. Why? Because it sounds like something people are happy with and I'm all for that.

-- I just downloaded it, I'll try 'er out and edit this post as I see fit

Also there is a way to make a good if not perfect alpha for your tga from photoshop CS v8 and imageready CS v8....
Get all of your transparentcies set up for your image, (you don't have to merge all of your layers if using several as saving it to a png will do this for you) then save it as a png, a promt will pop up asking interlaced options. Select "none".
Then pop the png into imageready, Go to File > Export > Original Document
And select the targa tga option. a promt will ask you to select 16bit, 24bit or 32bit.
32bit naturally And Make sure the Compress (RLE) is UNCHECKED.
A bit longer process, but has always proved to be a perfect tga for me everytime..works
great also if you are using a transparent png with half transparentcies (i.e. using alienskin eyecandy's gradient glow or corona plugins) Makes the process a lot easier.
Hope this helps also.

It's even easier than this, in any version of Photoshop, from the very first one to CS2.

1. Set up the file the way you want it, with all the transparency on all the layers, colors where you want to maintain saturated colors under partial transparency, and a matching (or darker) layer on the very bottom, to eliminate "white halo".

2. Hold down the Command/ctrl key, and click directly on the thumbnail of each layer you want in the final image. Shift+click to select multiple layers.

3. Go to Select > Save Selection.

4. Save as .tga, and select 32 bit from the next dialog when it pops up.

That's all there is to it. No white halo, no fussing with the lasso tool, no trips to the Channel Palette (unless you want to go there.) Just perfect transparency.

This has always been there, and is why Adobe dropped the PS 7 way of making alpha channels for .tga files. It wasn't significantly simpler than this, and almost always results in the dreaded white halo.

Cool Deal. I had forgotten about that method
But Never got any white halo problems thus far on any of my creations.
But a very fine addition indeed, Robin

I'm guessing you don't click on the bottom layer you added to prevent the haloing? I haven't tried that yet myself, usually just build on transparent, but I'll give it a shot with my next tattoo and see what it does. I'm guessing if you have multiple color areas (i.e. clothes), you match the bottom layer to each color?

Nope, don't click on the bottom layer, because that one is all filled, and would make the Alpha completely opaque. For clothing, I normally make a black mask, and put it above all the other layers. (And no, I don't click on it.)

That way I get "black halos" that look like shadows against the avatar skin.

you ROCK, Falling! tysm for sharing this incredibly useful info and file! huggss

WOW, finally! <3 Fallingwater

-Flip

Fally, I owe you a great big lickie. You've just made me so much less insane. Thankee.

Hey Torley! Or some forum mod! How about making this a 'Sticky' thread?

Oh, please don't!

This plug-in causes Photoshop to make targas with an embedded Alpha, not an Alpha channel. Although they display properly in SL, (except for the inevitable black halo, which most people simply ignore,) they cause all kinds of compatibility problems elsewhere.

Since it takes only a second (or less) to make a real Alpha channel, all this plug-in does is continue an error which Photoshop corrected years ago, and causes people who are having a hard time to take an "easy way out" that will hamper them down the road, if they ever get serious about computer graphics.

Many of us would love nothing more than to see this horrible thing fall off the bottom of the forum, so that we can show people the just-as-simple-but-far-better way to make true alpha channels.

If it's made a sticky, we'll be trying to explain this to people forever!

So please, please, don't perpetuate this error any more than has already been done.

God I wish this thread would die already.

DO NOT USE THIS PLUG-IN!!!

Here's why:

1. Images made with this plug-in will be incompatible with most graphics applications!
   
   
2. Images made with this plug-in will contain artifacts that will be impossible to correct!
   
3. Making a real alpha channel takes 2 seconds!
   
4. Images with varying levels of transparency (like stained glass windows) will take you much longer to make with this plug-in than they would doing it the normal way.
   
5. If you EVER want to be able in your lifetime to work collaboratively with others, understanding established conventions is crucial. Alpha channels are one of the most universally applicable conventions there is. If you use this plug-in instead of using real alpha channels, you will be selling yourself short in ways you can't even imagine!
   
6. Most graphics applications will NOT be able to display your images properly if you use this plug-in! It's only by some miracle that SL can do it. That could change at any time! If you use this plug-in, you may wake up one day to find that all your SL textures are broken!
   
7. Use real alpha channels, and you will ensure that your images will ALWAYS be able to be displayed by ALL capable programs! It's been this way since the dawn of modern graphics, and it will continue to be this way for decades to come!

2 people out of a tons unhappy. Too bad! Ever since I use that, my clothes are perfect, no white gooey, different levels of transparency DO look good and save correctly, AND WHO CARES IF YOU CANT MODIFY THE TARGA AFTER, KEEP YOUR DAMN .PSD!!! And no idea about your "black halo" you refer to, never ever saw that happen. It saves in seconds, and NO, real alpha doesn't, and plus don't see why incompatibility would affect me in *any* way, my clothes are not going anywhere then in SL. Sooooooooooooooo WHY WHY WHY isn't this STICKIED YET. Just do it and let the people decide if it's good or wrong.
HI5!!

wellllllll... they're not just *any* two people. That does make a very large difference.



Sigh. It sounds like the old battle of short-term pragmatism versus long-term strategic planning again...

I can be very pragmatic myself (hooray for bootstrapping!), but I can also understand the need for long-term thinking especially with something like this.

Note that Chosen and Robin usually pick up the burden of educating new clothing designers, so they're thinking in terms of what path will be most beneficial to beginners in the long run. They have to think that way -- they're teachers. Maybe this solution can work for someone who already knows a lot, but it's not good for people still learning and causes later problems for everyone.

If I'm just trying to solve problems or make something work, I would be pragmatic; but if I'm a teacher, I'd focus on laying a strong foundation for my students.

(Please don't take this the wrong way, Elka. I really like the things you make and wear some of them regularly!)

This looks great, but I cant get semi-transparant textures to come up using this method..

Say I make a 512x512 texture in PS - white layer (wall) - then cut out a rectangle (a door) in the right of it, put a rectangle around that on a new layer in red ( a frame)
and also make a "window" by copying a square from the "wall" using the lasso tool and layer via cut - then color it green and set it to 50% - when ctrl shift click the thumbnails of the 3 layers, and do the save selection thing, selecting the wall swallows the selection around the window, and if I use ctrl alt click on the thumbnail to deselect it, it makes a window, but not with the semi transparant window. So how do I make it work?

Apollo:

Layer opacity is additive. If you're sitting a 50% opacity window layer over your 100% opacity wall layer, then your end result will be 100% opacity in that area. I think that's what you're describing when you say the wall selection 'swallows' the window. There needs to be a transparent hole below the 50% layer, which you can do by deleting or Layer Masking that part of the wall.

When you've saved the selection, go over to the Channels palette and click on the Alpha to view it in grayscale. If you don't see black where you want empty space and gray where you want partial opacity, you should try again.

You are right. As I've said several times elsewhere, this method ignores Layer Opacity and Layer Masks. (If you had given the window a 50% fill, instead of changing the opacity, it would have worked; but that's unimportant.)

However, that doesn't mean that you need to sacrifice compatiblity and flexibility by downloading a crippling plug-in to make painless, nearly instant Alpha Channels that never require you to even glance at the Channel Palette.

There are a couple of ways to do it.

If you are working at the final size (as opposed to working larger, and reducing the size for SL,) the easiest way is;

1. Select the layer at the top of the Layer Stack. If you are working with PS prior to CS, or if that layer is locked in some way (for instance, it's a Text Layer, or a Vector Shape Layer,) create a New Layer.

2. Hold down Shift+Ctrl+Alt (or Shift+Command+Option on a Mac,) and tap the E key. This makes a composite layer from the visible layers, with all the layer transparency embeded in it.

3. Hold down Ctrl/Command and click that thumbnail, then Save Selection as above. You won't see the "Marching Ants" around the window, because you don't get them with 50% transparency or less, but you will have 50% gray in the Alpha Channel there.

If you are planning to change the Image Size anyway, I find that it prevents accidental overwrites to make a copy of the document first. So, in that case, I would;

1. Create a New Document from the Current State by clicking the leftmost icon at the bottom of the History Palette.

2. Merge Visible (Shift+Ctrl/Command E).

3. Hold down Ctrl/Command and click on the thumbnail, then Save Selection as above.

It's 3 steps either way, and either way, you'll wind up with a layer that you can use to run the Flaming Pear Solidify filter, so you can eliminate the White Halo. It depends on where I am in my workflow which method I use.

Of course, you can also just Merge Visible, use that thumbnail, and then Undo the Merge after you Save a Copy; but I've accidentally saved over the layered files enough times that I'm wary of that.

Honestly, we're not trying to make your life more difficult by recommending that you make real Alpha Channels, instead of embedded ones that are incompatible with so many things. We're trying to make it easier.

Adding three steps might save your virtual bacon someplace down the road. If three steps is too many, you can put the whole thing into an Action. You can even make one that creates the Alpha, and then deletes the extra layer! In fact, I'm going to go ahead, and make a bunch of actions, and post them in this thread, just to make life simpler for you. (You really are better off learning to do this yourself, though.)