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Elements 9 Alpha/Saved Selection Issue

I

Ian P

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unitedkingdom
Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone here can help, because this is now driving me up the wall and all the help I can get from Googling the problem is "hey, just press save selection and you're done!"

I'm trying to create a new alpha layer to reduce the problems with a FS9 aircraft prop in FSX. Not a problem, in theory, just make an almost transparent alpha layer (I'm using 10, 10, 10). The problem is, I'm using Photoshop Elements 9 and "Save selection" does exactly what it says on the can - saves a selection area (marquee lines). It does not save any content, such as, say, a nearly black square, all it does is allows you to recall the same selection area easily.

So... Step by step. I am opening the .bmp texture (which has an alpha already), creating a new layer that is just a solid 10,10,10 square. Selecting, going to Select // Save Selection, selecting "Alpha 1" (the existing alpha) from the drop down and choosing the "replace" option. It doesn't replace the alpha layer, it deletes all the contents so there's nothing there according to the histogram. Opening the saved PSD in Imagetool confirms Alpha: NONE.

What am I doing wrong? I can admit I'm thick as a small pile of short planks, but to make matters worse, I know I've done this before... I just can't remember or work out how! :confused:

Thanks in advance.

Ian P.
 
Have you tried simply using the keyboard shortcuts?

Ctrl-A (Select All)
Ctrl-V (Paste All)
 
Ctrl-A is actually how I was selecting the entire square to fill it (and ctrl-d to deselect it to confirm that it wasn't working...), but that's not the problem, Bill.

The problem is that this does not create an alpha layer, which is what I need it to. There are plenty of really unhelpful pages like Adobe's own here: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photosh...85fff53dea4f865ba1171040d4ce2d4-7ff0_WIN.html which tell you the same thing, but what it says is not what it does. Select the area, click SELECT // SAVE SELECTION as instructed and you get... a saved selection, not an alpha layer.

I'm missing something obvious. I don't know what it is.

Ian P.
 
In Elements 2.0 if you save the selection as instructed and then export the image as .bmp you'll get the option of saving as 32 bit. The finished .bmp will have an all black alpha channel with the exception of the selected area which will be pure white. If you used Ctrl+A and saved that as your selection then your entire alpha channel would have been white and Imagetool will in fact report "alpha: none" and throw it out whenever the alpha is all one color.

Unless Elements 9 has some options 2.0 doesn't, I don't think there's any way that you can use 10,10,10 instead of black. You can get some gray shades on the alpha channel if your saved selection was drawn with a feather edge, but it'd be hard to get exactly the shade you want where you want it.

This is completely different than PhotoShop, where you have a channels pallette that is very similar to the layers pallette and you can fill your selection with any shade of gray much like you'd fill a selected area on one of your layers. You can see what's happening, you get a good look at what your alpha channel is going to look like, and if it needs to be lighter or darker you can re-open and edit it or whatever you need to do.

In your case I'd suggest creating your desired alpha fill on a seperate layer (or layers) overtop all your other layers. Save this as a .psd so you can open it back up and edit if needed. Switch that layer off and export your .bmp as 24 bit. Then turn the alpha layer back on and export it again as filename_alpha.bmp or something so you wind up with 2 .bmps. Open the first one (the RGB) in DXTBmp and import the second one (grayscale) as alpha and save the combination of the two as 32 bit 888-8 or DXT3, or whatever you need for the sim.

Jim
 
Ah, just what Jim said... Actually, Adobe seems to be "hijacking the name" because what they are calling an Alpha channel, ain't no such thing... :rolleyes:
 
I have never been able to get Photoshop 6 to save a BMP with an Alpha. Only DXTBmp could do that (for me).

But... With the nVidia tools, I could save an Alpha in a DDS texture. That works really awesome. But still, no bitmap Alpha channels. You can have the Alpha there, but it will not save it into the bitmap, only the PSD.

But... (again), this is with the ole (reliable) Photoshop 6




Bill
 
Targa (.tga) is the most reliable for saving non .psd bitmaps w/Alpha channel, as it's a 32bit format.
 
Thanks Gents,

Jim has, indeed, hit the nail on the head. That's what I'm doing differently, because previously when I got it to work, I was creating a "blurred" edge to a runway texture, which would have been black and white - then saving directly to bitmap format - hence creating the "alpha". I did create a circular selection just around the prop this time, which also didn't work (in spite of being not the full area), but I saved it to PSD, not BMP, which is probably the difference.

I ended up using DXTBMP to add the alpha for these props and that worked fine (didn't help the prop, but did produce an Alpha layer!). It's a bit odd, actually - the aircraft I was trying to work on were the PMDG B1900C (didn't work) and D (worked fine). I don't know how they made the props differently on the models, but the newer C no amount of alpha twiddling and tweaking would help, so I'm just ignoring it.

I've always had problems with alpha layers, whether working in PSE, PSP or GIMP (which I cannot get to grips with at all). Unfortunately there's no way in blazes I can afford full Photoshop, so I guess Martin Wright is my saviour on this one, even though I will continue to use Imagetool for preference as a conversion package.

Thanks again for your help. I know what I'm doing now.

Ian P.
 
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