*eyeroll* Yes, another person is going to ask about alpha channels

My request seems easy enough, but through endless posts and 3 bottles of visine from lack of blinking in case I miss it messages...

I want to know what program to use thats for a first timer like myself to use to take my own pictures of like my family Christmas tree and make it into a texture for here?

I'm all confused, I think I need a hug.

Thank you in advance.

Great post title, but where's the alpha channel question?

The answer to the question you asked (which has nothing to do with alpha channels) is that if all you want to do is upload a few snapshots from your camera to SL, then strictly speaking, you really don't need any special software at all. Just take the pictures in JPEG format on your camera, use whatever utility you normally use to put them on your computer, and upload them to SL.

It's probably a good idea to turn the size settings way down on your camera, by the way. Most digital cameras by default will take pictures at sizes that are practical for print. which is like 5-10 times (or more) the size that's practical for textures. You want to go as small as possible. 512x512 would be good if the camera can go that low.

Now, if you want to be able to edit or optimize the pictures before uploading, then you should be using a raster editor like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, or GIMP. As you mentioned, there are hundreds of threads on this forum discussing the benefits and drawbacks of all three, so I'll refrain from listing it all over again.

As for your hug request, I'll give you one if you pretend real hard. There, doesn't that feel better?

thank you for the hug...

And yes, I want to make a cut out of the tree and my own personal wreath. So thats where I get confused at what program works easiest to just cut out my shapes so I can use it inworld.

A lot of threads were talking about clothing textures and distortions etc..I didn't know if a basic cutout of a tree/wreath/candycane would be the same or not.

I've looked for a many tutorials online and it seems after every tutorial someone corrects the creator of it in something they could have done different or better..which confuses me further.

If you know a good online site for showing how to do a cutout I'd apprecitate that too!

There's really no simple way to create an alpha channel for plants that you want to replicate in SL. Your best bet is to paint the alpha by hand, which you can simplify a bit using the selection tools (magic wand, select by color), but with a complex image like an xmas tree (presumably shot inside a home) you'll most likely have to do 90% of it the hard way, using a brush tool and painting in the transparency where you need it. There's no one graphics program that will make it simpler than others. Photoshop, GIMP, PSP, ect, would all be fine.

Try searching for Photo Impact Pro version 11. It's made by Nova and runs about 60 USD. It won't work too well for textures to use in SL (though it does support TGA formats) but for what you seem to want it would do it for you. Pretty easy to use and the manual is written for us less than expert types.

Ah, I get it now. I didn't realize you were asking about extracting your tree from a background. I thought you just meant you wanted to upload a simple snapshot.

If you can afford Photoshop, extracting plants can usually be done very effectively and relatively quickly with a channel mask. Basically, you take a look at the each of the three color channels individually, pick out the one that appears to have the most contrast between the plant and the background, duplicate it, and then use the burn & dodge and levels tools on the new copy to turn the plant area white and every thing else black. For the majority of plant images, it usually only takes a few minutes.

To give you an idea, here's a photo of a Christmas tree I just found online:




Here's the channel I picked to duplicate, which in this case happened to be the blue channel:




And here it is the alpha, created from a copy of the blue channel:



All I did to create the alpha from the blue channel's copy was the following:

1. I inverted it to reverse the grayscale values, turning black into white, white into black, etc. (Image -> Adjustments -> Invert, or ctrl-I)

2. I increased the contrast a bit by playing with the levels to further the distinction between the lights and darks. (Image -> Adjustments -> Levels)

3. Then I enhanced those light/dark differences with the burn & dodge tools.

4. Finally I used the paintbrush to clean up any stubborn stray areas that the burn & dodge tools couldn't fix.

All in all, this was about 3 minutes' work from start to finish. Were this an important image that I'd actually be using, I probably would have given it a little more time, but 3 minutes was enough to demonstrate the concept.

This, of course, was done with an expensive, professional grade program in the hands of (no conceit intended) a very experienced user. It would take a new user longer than 3 minutes to get the same result, but that's perfectly okay. It shouldn't take a really long time, even if this is someone's first project. If it took a newbie any longer than 20 minutes to do this, I'd be surprised.

So, that's Photoshop, but what about the alternatives? Well, if you don't care to invest the money into Photoshop, other programs can certainly do the job, just not as efficiently.

It's likely you can do almost the same procedure in GIMP, but the actual steps of the procedure may be a little more complicated. I've never used GIMP for this purpose, so I'm afraid I can't comment all that intelligently on the specific process, but generally, everything is more complicated in GIMP, due to its poor interface and somewhat non-standard tool naming conventions.

You can do it in Paintshop Pro, but the process will be a little more round-about, since PSP does not have a channels palette. There would be a bit more hand painting involved.

I've never used PhotoImpact, but judging by what's on their website, I probably wouldn't recommend it (no offense, Peggy). From the tutorials on the PhotoImpact website, it appears to be full of tools called SmartThis and SmartThat, the idea being that the software automagicaly does all the work for you in just a few clicks. I would never recommend any piece of software that pretends it's smarter than its users, whether it be for graphics or anything else. There's just no way any program wizard can ever know what you as a human being are trying to create. You might as well ask an MS Word wizard to write your novel for you, or ask that paint brush sitting on your desk to create a Picasso all by itself. It just doesn't work that way. At the risk of sounding a little NRA'ish here, tools don't create results; humans do.

In summary, Photoshop will give you the best results the fastest, but it's expensive for the hobbyist. GIMP is almost as powerful for this purpose, and it's free, but it's harder to learn and use. PSP is inexpensive and will do the job, but the specific tools for this task won't be as streamlined. Weighing those pros and cons is up to you.

I hope this was helpful.

"You can do it in Paintshop Pro, but the process will be a little more round-about, since PSP does not have a channels palette. There would be a bit more hand painting involved"

To remove a background, by colour, using psp is not hard, one does have to understand how to use paint programs though. especially if the colours one is removing exist across the picture... its about technique and method.. and that itself requires learning.

i posted a method that removes colours without needing an erasor, using psp animation shop, included with psp.

/109/48/171200/1.html#post1648651

and preserves edges if.. the colours one is removing are not in the part one needs to keep.. even if they are, there are methods that dont require one to use an erasor or a brush.. ever.

But.. i agree, if you have never done it before... and are not converse with paint programs, then it will not be easy to do.. without some knowledge.

i would be happy to do it for you Honey.. you can email me... incony AT incony.org

Nice tip, Chosen. That should get added to the sticky.

Thank you everyone for your posts, I'm looking into all of these programs right now to see what one is the most user friendly for myself.

I think my ignorance on how easy I thought it was has made me swallow my pride. I would take heads from one picture and paste it on another with my own photos and I thought it was the same sort of idea.

Kudos to all of you that are able to do this and make it look so incredible in SL, I really had no idea how complex some of it is.

Good call If you do checkout The Gimp, then I recommend going for the 2.4 rc1 edition. This has a major interface tidy up over the 2.2.x series. Who knows, you might even find "Colours -> Invert" more intuitive than "Image -> Adjustments -> Invert" too

Wow, thanks for that link Incony. I've sat and did a whole bunch of roses by hand, which had a white background to begin with, won't be doing that again

I just made my first alpha mask using your Christmas Tree Tutorial. I took a straight on photo of a bouquet of flowers against a light colored background, good lighting and no flash, and my finished texture has a perfectly transparent background.
Many Many thanks
Ethan
That tutorial should be added to your sticky on alpha textures.

1- Got Photoshop 30 day trial all downloaded and installed to use.

2- Got picture of mitts from home to try and cut out.

3- Followed the instructions best to my ability, having never used any type of program like this before.

4- Still staring at the screen with the deer in the headlights look.

5- Waits for the pity thread to start with my STEP by STEP instructions on where to find all these fancy bells and whistles.

6- Appreciates all the help you have given so far.