Saved texture with alpha - alpha gone in Photoshop

[Daniel Regenbogen]

I searched for a bit already, but only found answers for the other direction. My problem: I have textures with alpha parts in SL. When I save them as .tga to my hd and then open them in Photoshop (Elements 7 or CS2), the alpha parts are turned into white - but only there. When I re-upload the saved tga to SL, all is fine.

Can someone help me with that problem? Thanks in advance

Daniel Regenbogen

[Marie Price]

Hi Daniel, I use the method below... Not sure if it's the most efficient way, but it works for me.
I hope it helps.

To restore alpha transparency to a .tga using PS CS2 ~

1: Duplicate the layer (then hide the original/background layer)
2: Go to channels tab of the layer palette, and check "show" the Alpha 1 channel
3: Ctrl-click on that channels icon window and then Select Inverse (shift+Ctrl+I)
4: Now "hide" the Alpha 1 channel again.. and return to the layers tab (the opaque areas should be outlined by "marching ants")
5: Be sure the duplicate layer is active (blue) and hit Ctrl+X... the opaque areas should now be 100% transparent.

(Or you could just open the .tga with GIMP...  Transparency seems to work there for some reason!?!)

Marie.

[BlckCobra Shikami]

This effect results from the way alpha channels work. They mask out parts of the image by a alpha mask/alpha channel. That does not mean the image has to be blank at those masked areas. It can be fully white or black or whatever. The Alpha Channel decided which area will be transparent or not.

So you may see it in Photoshop as solid background, but actually there is an alpha channel.

Select the channels tab in PS and go into "Mask Mode" and you will see that alpha areas marked with a reddish layer when you switch back to the layer view.

Hope this helps, Cobra

[Daniel Regenbogen]

Thank you, that was most helpful and worked perfectly.