Why does it show white??

Hi,

When I upload clothes I have made in PS 6.0 via templates, it uploads with a white background instead of the transparent one.
I have tryed to save as both Targa and Jpg, but it´s the same.

Can anyone please help me?

Thanks in advance.

You need to use alpha channels to get transparency and make sure you save as 32 bit targa (not 24).

It's not enough just to save as Targa. You should first have also created a transparent image and an alpha channel.

This tutorial is for Photoshop CS but the concepts are the same.

Another decent Alpha channel tutorial

Or, if you prefer a Video tutorial, I have one here.

Y'know, one VERY minor but VERY important thing that new Photoshop users might miss. I post this because it happened to me this week

You have a transparent image. You've built your image on layers, as you should. You're ready to create the alpha channel...

It's not enough simply to select the Channel tab and add a channel. That works in Paintshop, but not here.

First select the part of your image which you want to be masked (Magic Wand, color sampling, whatever method works for you so that you see the marching ants around the image), then leave it selected as you create your new alpha channel. Check "from selection" (I think? Not looking at it here at work) and presto -- you now have a nice working mask on your alpha channel. Now you can save your image as a 32-bit TGA and you won't see the nasty white areas you thought were transparent.

You experienced hands already knew this. But we see enough new Photoshop users here (including me) that sometimes the details get lost in the translation.

Good point, Cindy.

But if you really want to select the non-transparent pixels, and keep all the subtle levels of transparency, there is really only one fool-proof way to do that.

Fortunately, it's also the simplest way.

Hold down Command/ctrl, and click on the Thumbnail image in the Layers palette.

That's the one that makes a selection based entirely on transparency, and nothing else.

If you have several layers, and you don't want to lose them, just hold down the Shift key, and keep clicking. That will add the pixels from all the selections.

If you want to prove to yourself the difference between this and other methods, try each of them, saving separate masks, and compare them.

You'll find that there is really no comparison, especially if you have subtle "shades" of transparency.

You also don't need to open the Channel palette, and make a new channel there, although that certainly will work.

All you need to do is "Save Selection" from the Select menu, and choose New. That'll do it.

Hope this helps!

I decided to go back to 7.0 where you dont need to make alpha channels for tgas its all automatic...wonder why they decided to make things more complicated with CS and CS2.

Smitty, they decided to give us total control over exactly what is in the Alpha channel because a lot of people asked for it.

When you're doing professional work with Photoshop, and a lot of us are, you don't want the program deciding what is in the Alpha. You want to do that yourself. We are a bunch of control freaks, and nothing less than complete control will satisfy us.

However, there are a lot of people who use Photoshop, but don't make their living from it, and prefer the automatic alpha channel. (There are some who do, and prefer that channel, for that matter! )

I don't recommend that you use it for Second Life, because that's how you get white halos around things. (When you make the channel yourself, you can have a background that matches the colors in the image, which eliminates the halo.) But if you want to anyway, that's your choice.

Adobe has plug-ins to restore that functionality on their site. They are advertised for use with 7.x, and I don't know if they work with CS or not, but some things posted on other forums leads me to believe that they might. In any case, if you want to try it out, they are available for both the Mac and the PC.

Hope this helps!