pspXI and alphachannels

Hi, i've just been here for five days and now i'm designing some clothes for my avatar. Now i've read the paper about alphachannels and psp but somehowe i do something wrong or the discription is wrong. Especially the part of selections is missing? I've made a top and now i want the rest transparant. Isn't there anny other solution to get this because i don't understand this one. I only have pspXI. And by the way, i'm dutch so if there is a dutch discription, it's better for me to understand.

Thnx

The procedure for making alpha channels in PSP XI should be roughly the same as in versions IX and X. The menu layout, and the precise names of tools and things may change a little from version to version, but the general work-flow remains the same. The basic steps are first you create a mask, then you paint black over the parts of the mask that are to be transparent, and paint white over the parts that are to be opaque (either by hand-painting, or by auto-painting via selection). Save the mask to an alpha channel, and save the file as 32-bit TGA.

I'm not sure what you're trying to ask about selections. I don't speak Dutch, but if you could provide a more detailed description in English of what you mean, I'll do what I can to help.

hello,

if you look further on in this forum, ive written in detail exactly how i figured how to get alpha channels working in psp....

the thread is called BLACK CLOTHING and was posted by Kelli....

it may help you too,

s

for the quick reaction.

This is wath i do, i open my design, i select the design at the layer.
I select layers, new masklayer, show all.
Then i select the masklayer and put withe color in the place of my design.
Then i reverse the selection and i fill it with black.
I save my mask in the alphachannel.
I remove/delete the masklayer without remerging.
I ad a new layer and put it at the bottem. This layer i fill whit black.
I save my work with tga 32 bits. Then i get the question that psp must remerge it all because there are 2 channels and there may be only one.
When i try it on my avatar, it shows the black color while it should be transparant.
So i want to know what i do wrong.

I will also look at that other thread but i hope in my best englisch i gave a good discription.

Thnx

It sounds like you've got an alpha channel already in place in the template, so when you make your own alpha, you're ending up with two. The old one is probably completely white, so when PSP merges the two, the resulting composite is also completely white. Hence, no transparency. I'd suggest you delete any pre-existing alphas as soon as you begin your work.

To do that, go Image -> Delete Alpha Channel. In the dialog that pops up, make sure "delete all alpha channels" is turned on, and click Ok. Now make your own alpha channel, and when you save to TGA, you shouldn't end up seeing that prompt that you've got too many channels.

Alternatively, you could start over by copying all your layers into a brand new document. That way, you'll know your image doesn't have any channels in it that you didn't put there yourself. As with the above solution, when you save TGA this time, it shouldn't end up giving you that prompt that you've got too many channels.

I had the same problem as you... countless other have as well. The photoshop users that give advice here definately know what they're talking about, but PSP just works a little differently because you can't actually save alpha channels with a .tga.

Below is the only link that I've been able to find in all my searching that actually has the correct steps.

http://www.sluniverse.com/kb/article.aspx?id=10190

Also, if you haven't already, you'll want to download one of the great sets of templates to work with. You're life will be so much easier.

Edited to fix link..

I'm not sure what you mean by that. The ability to contain up to four channels (Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha1) is an inherent property of all TGA files. It's built into the format itself. PSP absolutely does allow for the saving of alpha channels in TGA files, as is the case with virtually all programs that can write TGA format.


Your link is broken, so you know. You forgot the E in universe.

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear you've had such a hard time searching. There are a great many tutorials with "the correct steps" including the one stickied at the top of this forum. I do regret that the tutorials in the Transparency Guide are lacking pictures though, so maybe that's why you had a hard time following it if you did read it. At the time I posted the guide, the ability to attach pictures had been turned off by the Lindens. It's been on my to-do list to add pictures for some time now.

For what it's worth, I'm not personally a big fan of the tutorial in your link. While most of the steps are the same as the ones in my PSP tutorial, the SLuniverse one doesn't contain a de-haloing step, which is a big flaw. More importantly, it doesn't make allowances for the fact that not all images start with transparent backgrounds. The New Mask Layer -> From Image command will fail if you've got any coloring at all in your background at the time you make the mask.

I'd much rather people learn why alpha channels work as they do at the same time they're learning to make them than hand people a sometimes-only solution just because it might be marginally faster. That SLuniverse tutorial doesn't explain any of the why at all, so I can't recommend it myself. I'm glad it worked for you, but I'd be willing to bet many people are a little handicapped by it.

Chosen, you are probably right about everything you said, but you are a very advanced user. The link that I posted worked for me because I was simply trying to make some basic clothes and work myself up from there. I believe that the OP is trying to do the same thing and this link combined with the clothing templates on this site will work great and become the basis to learn more.

I found it difficult in the beginning to try to learn everything that PSP or Photoshop could do before I wanted to dive in and start creating. You're right that this is probably not the correct way to go about learning, but I believe it's the easiest and fastest.

Also.. the Alpha Channel saving issue for PSP is still a little confusing for me, but below is an excerpt from the PSP Help Database on Alpha Channels..

Again.. thanks for all your help... us noobs couldn't do it without you.


----------------------------------------------------------------
Saving and loading selections
Saving selections is useful if you have made a complicated selection that you want to use again. You can also save selections as files or as alpha channels.

When you save a selection, it is saved as a separate file with a .PspSelection filename extension. When you a load a selection into an image, Corel Paint Shop Pro creates a selection based on luminance, non-black pixels, or opacity.

Alpha channels in images are data storage areas that hold selections and masks. When you save a selection as an alpha channel, the selection is stored as part of the image on which it was originally created, rather than as a separate file. Selections and masks stored in alpha channels have no effect on the look of an image.

**** Noted Section ****
When you save the image in a file format other than the PspImage format, its alpha channels are not saved. Therefore, it is recommended that you keep a master copy of your image in PspImage format.
*** End Note ****

When you save a selection to an alpha channel within a PspImage image, you can load that selection from the alpha channel into the same image or into any other image.

If you saved selections to alpha channels that you no longer need, you can delete them. You can delete alpha channels from the current image only.

---------------------------------------

In short, these are two things that have to be done for this to work.... i dont know why, and i only found out through trial and error. Try reading that other thread i mentioned before too, as its detailed, may be easier for you to understand...

1. Your final layer of your completeted piece of clothing, must be merged down into 'SHADED GRID' layer. Your final piece of clothing will then be called 'SHADED GRID'

2. After you have merged your work into SHADED GRID - then you right click on shaded grid, create new mask layer - show all.....

(your mask layer and shaded grid will now be a GROUP above the background layer....

3. MAKE SURE BACKGROUND LAYER HAS A RED CROSS THROUGH IT. IT HAS TO BE TURNED OFF AND HAVE A RED CROSS THROUGH IT.

4. Now paint in the black where you dont want to see stuff.

5. save mask to alpha channel - delete mask....

6. create a new raster and paint black and put that below your 'shaded grid layer; and above the crossed off background layer'.....

s

Wow. That explanation of what alpha channels are couldn't be more off the mark regarding what they're actually for. No wonder so many PSP users have so much trouble. Corel should know better than that. Whoever wrote that chapter should be fired, and they should have an actually competent member of their staff rewrite the whole thing.

The "noted section" is just plain wrong. Clearly there are other formats besides the native PSP one that retain alpha channels. TGA's can have one, PSD's can have an unlimited number, etc., etc., etc. It sounds like the author of that section had a vested interest in promoting PSP format. I'm a little disgusted, actually.

I'm sorry to learn that the PSP help files are so inaccurate. Thanks for pointing it out though. I think I'll mention it in my tutorials from now on.



Scott, so you know, you don't need to merge your layers. TGA's are inherently layerless, so whether your source image document has one layer or a million layers won't matter. The TGA will turn out exactly the same.

for all the answers. I did it. I got my designs transparant. Thank you all!!

Glad you got it worked out, Gaya. Congrats.

Any more questions, come on back.

I will have to disagree with you on that. You can save alpha channels in a tga in PSP from 8 to 11. The problem is they aren't called alphas on the menu bars. they are masks. New mask
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i do it all the time.