PARTIAL Transparency on PSE?

OK, Thanks to Robin's (and others) great tips for finding the hidden alpha channel on PSE, I know merrily import full transparency files to SL. Woo Hoo!

However, is there a way to do partial transparency? Hmmmm?

For example: I recently saw a path texture where the path prim blends away slowly to full transparency. When placed on the ground, it looks great. I'd like to use that technique in some other projects.

I'm running good old Photoshop Elements version 3 on a Mac.

Yep, there sure is.

Basically it's the same trick, but you use partial transparency in your selection. I don't have access to PSE 3 on my Mac, but I just tried this out on one of the PCs in the house, with a family member's copy of PSE 4, and it works fine. I'm assuming that it will work on the Mac, with PSE 3 too.

All you need to do is put whatever transparency you want on your various layers. You can use the Gradient Tool to make the kind of transparency ramp you were talking about, or use the sliders to make partial transparency, or do whatever you feel inclined to do to make the transparency in the image look exactly like the transparency you want in world.

Then, make a new layer at the top of the layer stack, hide any layers that are opaque (like the Background layer, or any solid layers that you intend to use to get rid of the white halo) and, with the layers that have your transparency information showing, hold down Shift+Option+Command and tap the E key. That will make a new composite layer, and make all the layer opacity information selectable.

Now, hold down the Command key, and click the layer thumbnail picture of that Composite Layer to select the layer opacity.

Save the Seleciton, and you have your Alpha channel, with partial transparency. (If you have already saved a selection before, then Replace that one, of course. There Can Be Only One. )

Reveal any hidden layers that you need, save as a 32 bit Targa file, upload to SL, and there you go!

Hope this helps!

Edited to add the step to reveal any hidden layers.