How to save a Targa with Alpha Channels in PSE9

I have PSE9 and need to create an image without the background (mk background Alpha Channel) and save as Targa. I can edit the pic, save at 32 at 200k but PSE9 does not allow to save/create Alpha Channel. How do I make the (background an) alpha channel and save as Targa?

Save your selection using Select>Save Selection, which creates a new channel (i named it Alpha 1 below)
Pse 9 will save the channel when using the 32 bits/pixel in the targa options dialog.

Similar Messages

How do you get photos with alpha channel on to display properly in iPhoto ?

Yesterday I imported some raw photos from PSE9 to iPhoto 09 (version 8.1.2) in tiff format. Most of the pictures came out fine, but the ones that had alpha channel on looked more like negatives. Is there a way to fix this problem?

Alpha channels of masked areas are not supported or rendered properly by iPhoto. Alpha layers of selected areas don't seem to be affected.
Send a feature request to Apple via http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html.
OT

How do I add a new alpha channel in pse9?

where would I find the channel tab for pse3? I would like to use a black, white gradient and the lens blur to give a picture depth. I would like to make things in the background look farther away with a gradual blending effect of the lese blur. thank you in advance!

You make a selection, then save it as a new selection.
However, I'm not at all clear as to why you need to do this. For what you described in your first post, grouped/clipped layers would work better.
I myself only make alpha channels per se when other programs require them. (If you load the saved selection, then save the file with the selection active, it will be seen as an alpha channel by many programs).

How to render with alpha channel?

Hello,
I am trying to render a comp with alpha channel QT PNG. When i play the clip it's with black BG but if i imported in AE is with alpha channel. How to render in such way that i can play in Quicktime without the black BG? Am i missing something?
Thanks!

robert_ro wrote:
Hello,
I am trying to render a comp with alpha channel QT PNG. When i play the clip it's with black BG but if i imported in AE is with alpha channel. How to render in such way that i can play in Quicktime without the black BG? Am i missing something?
Thanks!
You've successfully rendered the alpha channel. Alpha information is not displayed as expected in some players. IN QT Player, your alpha is transparent but the player has no background so it defaults to black. Check the playback operations and settings/prefs for QT Player, there may be a way to tell it to show alpha information.
bogiesan

How can I get an AIR application to a video output via DeckLink card with alpha channel?

Hi there!
Anybody knows how to get an AIR application to a video output via DeckLink card with alpha channel?
The reason is because we want to develope tv show games with air.
Thanks.

See if these have iMac Nvidia drivers:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/

How to save a png with a straight or fat alpha?

Long story short, work in broadcast and a new piece of gear prefers png files. I know how to save png's with a transparency, that's not the problem. What I don't know how to do or if it's possible is to save them with a straight or fat alpha. Right now we feather or extend the edges out past the alpha of say a logo and save it as a tif, psd or .tga. That way once it's keyed over video or whatever, the edges look good, no black bad edging.... this makes sense, probably not explaining it very well. But switching to png files I have no idea how to make a straight or fat alpha since it sees transparency. I mean if I feathered out the edges, a png will see that correct, since there's no alpha??
I hope this makes sense ?

Chris, this is probably the answer I seek "PNG always saves with straight color - that's how the PNG spec defines it."
I admit my explanation was a bit weak and I understand PNG only supports transparency, which is not an alpha, and the apps aren't treating them wrong....I just couldn't formulate an intelligent question and explain it, my bad.
After thinking about it I don't think using a PNG will work. RIght now for broadcast gear/applications if we don't fill the transparent and semi-transparent areas of an image with the colored part of the image, we usually end up getting a dirty key/matte or a lot of fringing. So when using a .tif or .tga that reads an actuall alpha, we can fix the issue by doing what I described. In fact we use a quick little plugin from flaming Pear called "Solidifty" to speed up the process http://www.flamingpear.com/download.html . With that said, I know we can't do the same steps with a png because it only sees transparency, but I guess I was wondering if there was a work-around or a trick to fix that issue. I could be wong, but doesn't a png save with white ?
But again, as I thought about it, I think i'm asking for something it's not meant to do, but I thought I'd ask anyway.
Thanks Chris, does this make more sense or more confusing? The bottom-line is I don't think it will work.

ImageIO PNG Writing Slow With Alpha Channel

I'm writing a project that generates images with alpha channels, which I want to save in PNG format. Currently I'm using javax.ImageIO to do this, using statements such as:
ImageIO.write(image, "png", file);
I'm using JDK 1.5.0_06, on Windows XP.
The problem is that writing PNG files is very slow. It can take 9 or 10 seconds to write a 640x512 pixel image, ending up at around 300kb! I have read endless documentation and forum threads today, some of which detail similar problems. This would be an example:
[http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6215304|http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6215304]
This surely must be resolvable, but after much searching I've yet to find a solution. If it makes any difference, I ONLY want to write png image, and ONLY with an alpha channel (not ever without), in case there are optimisations that that makes possible.
If anyone can tell me how to address this problem, I'd be very grateful.
Many thanks, Robert Redwood.

This isn't a solution, but rather a refinement of the issue.
Some of the sources I was reading were implying that the long save time might be due to a CPU heavy conversion process that had to take place before the BufferedImage could be saved. I decided to investigate:
I loaded back in one of the (slowly) saved PNG images using ImageIO.read(file). Sure enough, the BufferedImage returned differed from the BufferedImage I had created. The biggest difference was the color model, which was DirectColorModel on the image I was generating, and was ComponentColorModel on the image I was loading back in.
So I decided to manually convert the image to be the same as how it seemed to end up anyway. I wrote the following code:
      * Takes a BufferedImage object, and if the color model is DirectColorModel,
      * converts it to be a ComponentColorModel suitable for fast PNG writing. If
      * the color model is any other color model than DirectColorModel, a
      * reference to the original image is simply returned.
      * @param source The source image.
      * @return The converted image.
     public static BufferedImage convertColorModelPNG(BufferedImage source)
          if (!(source.getColorModel() instanceof DirectColorModel))
               return source;
          ICC_Profile newProfile = ICC_Profile.getInstance(ColorSpace.CS_sRGB);
          ICC_ColorSpace newSpace = new ICC_ColorSpace(newProfile);
          ComponentColorModel newModel = new ComponentColorModel(newSpace, true, false, ComponentColorModel.TRANSLUCENT, DataBuffer.TYPE_BYTE);
          PixelInterleavedSampleModel newSampleModel = new PixelInterleavedSampleModel(DataBuffer.TYPE_BYTE, source.getWidth(), source.getHeight(), 4, source.getWidth() * 4, new int[] { 0, 1, 2, 3 });
          DataBufferByte newDataBuffer = new DataBufferByte(source.getWidth() * source.getHeight() * 4);
          ByteInterleavedRaster newRaster = new ByteInterleavedRaster(newSampleModel, newDataBuffer, new Point(0, 0));
          BufferedImage dest = new BufferedImage(newModel, newRaster, false, new Hashtable());
          int[] srcData = ((DataBufferInt)source.getRaster().getDataBuffer()).getData();
          byte[] destData = newDataBuffer.getData();
          int j = 0;
          byte argb = 0;
          for (int i = 0; i < srcData.length; i++)
               j = i * 4;
               argb = (byte)(srcData[i] >> 24);
               destData[j] = argb;
               destData[j + 1] = 0;
               destData[j + 2] = 0;
               destData[j + 3] = 0;
          //Graphics2D g2 = dest.createGraphics();
          //g2.drawImage(source, 0, 0, null);
          //g2.dispose();
          return dest;
     }My apologies if that doesn't display correctly in the post.
Basically, I create a BufferedImage the hard way, matching all the parameters of the image I get when I load in a PNG with alpha channel.
The last bit, (for simplicity), just makes sure I copy over the alpha channel of old image to the new image, and assumes the color was black. This doesn't make any real speed difference.
Now that runs lightning quick, but interestingly, see the bit I've commented out? The alternative to setting the ARGB values was to just draw the old image onto the new image. For a 640x512 image, this command (drawImage) took a whopping 36 SECONDS to complete! This may hint that the problem is to do with conversion.
Anyhow, I got rather excited. The conversion went quickly. Here's the rub though, the image took 9 seconds to save using ImageIO.write, just the same as if I had never converted it. :(
SOOOOOOOOOOOO... Why have I told you all this?
Well, I guess I think it narrows dow the problem, but eliminates some solutions (to save people suggesting them).
Bottom line, I still need to know why saving PNGs using ImageIO is so slow. Is there any other way to fix this, short of writing my own PNG writer, and indeed would THAT fix the issue?
For the record, I have a piece of C code that does this in well under a second, so it can't JUST be a case of 'too much number-crunching'.
I really would appreciate any help you can give on this. It's very frustrating.
Thanks again. Robert Redwood.

Saving out with Alpha channel intact to windows machine? (Motion v3)

I am working with someone who does video on his windows machine using Premier, but I use Motion to add effects to thier video.
They are sending me a wmv version of the video, which I convert into prorez to work on (keeping frame rate and video size intact) and send the video to Motion to add the effects. Once I'm done I turn off the layer with the original video and send back to FCP.
I want to save out a quicktime video from FCP with alpha channel intact so I can send the FX-only layer back to my workmate so he can drop it into his timeline on his machine and have everything align properly.
Any advice on how to do this?

If you have Compressor 4, check and see if you have the Animation codec. If you do, send the Motion project to Compressor and select the Animation codec with the setting 'Million Colors+'. The + (plus) is the transparent setting for the codec.
Open the Motion app and drop the Animation video on top of something to make sure you have the transparency.
Motion has ProRes 4444 that can contain a transparent background. Unfortunately, Windows computers do not support the ProRes codec.
BTW, a transparent background will look black (sometimes white).

Can no longer import QT files with alpha channel

I have been using these client supplied QT with alpha channel files just fine for weeks, then all of a sudden, after a crash the other day, I was unable to open sequences with these files and exoprt them, the exporter would just freeze. the clips played in the timeline, but VERY sluggish.
On the reccomendation of a few posts around here, I removed the clips from the project, and now I cannot import them back in, I get a "the importer reported a generic error" message. I am able to open in QT pro and export to a new file that will import to PPro, but I lose the alpha channel.
As always, I'm up against a deadline and any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have installed QT 7.07, no help.
I'm on a windows 7 machine running CS master collection 5.0, Quad core AMD with 8 gig RAM.
These files worked fine just days ago!!!!
BTW, I just switched over to Premiere a few months ago and to honest I can't understand how anyone would stick with this buggy software, as a professional I've never used anything this bad before.

Welcome to the forum.
Try these. Attempt to re-import after each one:
Clean the media cache database via Edit | Preferences | Media
If step 2 doesn't work, then find all the .qtindex, .mpgindex, .cfa and .pek files associated with the media that's supposed to be in your project and delete them. Then clean the media cache database again.
Launch Pr and while it's launching, hold down the Alt + Shift keys until the Welcome screen appears. Alt resets your preferences and Shift resets the plug-in cache.
To address the other issues you say you've been having with Pr, you should start a different thread (or threads). Coming from other editors, there may be a difference in the way Pr does things that produce unexpected results that may be seen as bugs. More serious issues, such as crashes, can often be caused by 3rd-party hardware like AJA, Matrox or BlackMagic and the associated drivers. Outdated or incorrect drivers for audio and video cards can also cause problems. I recommend that you start troubleshooting those areas first.
Other issues may have workarounds. If you have serious, reproducible problems that have no workaround, then please file bug reports here:
Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form
-Jeff

No Method of Batch Export for Clips with Alpha Channels?

Good morning,
As many a flustered editor has eventually discovered, in order for FCP to export sequences with alpha channels to a 32-bit format, the timeline has to be un-rendered at the time of export, or else the transparent parts will appear black in the outputted file. This sort-of makes sense if you know how FCP and render files work, but in a perfect world I think I'd have designed the export interface a bit differently. Now that I think about it, I'm actually working in an Animation (Millions of Colors +) sequence, so converting transparent areas to black makes no logical sense at all.
Anyway, I have several sequences that I would like to export as 32-bit TGA QuickTime files, preserving their transparency. If I Export Using Compressor, the process results in pre-rendering of the sequence, turning the transparent areas black. The same problem occurs if I export QuickTime reference movies from FCP and open them directly with Compressor.
Does anyone know of a way to avoid this silly phenomenon or am I stuck individually exporting each sequence from FCP, one...at.......a................time?
Thanks,
Zap

Thanks, Andy, "Batch Export" eventually did the trick!
I forgot about that tool because I've never actually had to use it before! After playing around with it for a while, I found that as long as the sequence settings for each sequence in the batch are set to a codec with an activated alpha channel, it works just fine.
Thanks again,
Zap

Using video with alpha channel

I purchased a video clip from istock, the video clip is an .mov and has a alpha channel included. The video clip is santa clause over a black background and tagged at the end is a white solid of the video (I assume this is the alpha channel) How do I use the alpha channel to help key out the vidoe clip that I need. here is a link to the actual video clip I purchased. http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-video-11011749-santa-claus-with-alpha-channel-ntsc.php
Thanks Ja

As Szalam said, the b/w image can be used as a luma matte.
Also check if the actual piece of footage has an embedded alpha channel, i.e when you import it AE should know there is an alpha channel and let you know in the top of the project window when you select the element (or "interpret footage").
Alternatively just drag the footage to a comp and enable the checkerboard background to see if there is transparency. These three approaches are the same...just different ways of finding out about the alpha channel.

Flash Player for FLV files with alpha channel encoded

My goal is to play the the transparent background flash video on the bottom right hand corner similar to the video on this website : http://www.dropshipblueprint.com/
I already have the FLV file with alpha channel encoded. I was made to understand I will need a special flash player that can read alpha channel in the flv file to make the background transparent? Is this correct? If yes, then how to accomplish this or where do I get that player, maybe opensourece player? If the player is not a solution then how do I accomplish my end objective taking into consideration I have the FLV file with the alpha channel encoded. Thanks for your help. Sam

Sam,
Welcome to the forum.
Where do you need to play this "sprite" (the name for such a Flash video)?
If you need to add that to a Video, then there could be a few challenges in PrE.
If you need to add it to a Web site, then Flash Player (free from Adobe) should be able to display that.
Can you please give us just a bit more info, on how you wish to use the sprite?
Good luck,
Hunt

Sudden problem with importing tiff files with alpha channel (CS5)

OK this is driving me nuts. For years I have been importing image files that have an alpha channel into FCP as.tiff files. I use Photoshop files only when I want to use the layers as they are too cumbersome otherwise). I have recent upgraded Photoshop, etc. to CS5 and now FCP won't import them anymore. I get a message saying: "File error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown"
I am not doing anything different and tiff files created in just the same way in an earlier version of Photoshop import and work just fine. Is this a CS5 bug? Does anyone know of a work around. I want to keep using tiff files as they seem to work best for me with alpha channel work (and I don't see why I need to reinvent the wheel).
Thanks
A

I've had a similar issue recently. Same TIFF files downloaded from the same server, different FCP project, new error. I either see"File error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown" or I get the even stranger, "Unrecognized file type."
I can open them in PS and save them again as TIF, same results. I know these are not CMYK files but even if resave the TIF as RGB, I get the same results, they are not recognized by FCP.
But if I open them in PS and save them as PNG with alpha, they improt fine.
I have no idea what's going on.
bogiesan
Message was edited by: David Bogie Chq-1

Adding logo with Alpha channel to Quicktime and exporting as .mp4

I'm adding a PNG file with alpha channel to my existing movie file using "Add to Selection and Scale".
I then have my movie with the overlayed graphic.
When I then Export as an mp4, the alpha channel is ignored!
Any help, anyone?

Yes it looks perfect in Quicktime.
But for some reason I can't save it as anything else or even export a still frame without the alpha being ignored and the image going all fuzzy.

Automator or Applescript using png files with alpha channel

I have hundred of png files with alpha channel.
I want to suppress alpha channel.
How can i do it using Automator or Applescript ?
Thank you very much.

You can use the free command line image processing tool ImageMagick in your Applescripts or Automator workflows, as well as from a Terminal shell.
You can download ImageMagick from http://www.imagemagick.org, but Cactuslab has simplified installation by putting together an installer package. It’s available at http://cactuslab.com/imagemagick/. Download the package and double-click on it. Follow the instructions to install. It will install ImageMagick into /opt/ImageMagick and add it to your $PATH by creating a file in /etc/paths.d/. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
The two ImageMagick commands we’re concerned with are “convert” and “mogrify”. Convert is more efficient for multiple and piped operations on the same image file, and mogrify is more efficient for batch processing. Generally speaking, convert will output a file separate from the input file. Unless a path is specified, mogrify will overwrite the input file with the output file. An important distinction.
You can perform various operations on the alpha channel using arguments after either the convert or mogrify command. Two of the available arguments are:
-alpha off - Disables the image's transparency channel. Does not delete or change the existing data, just turns off the use of that data.
-alpha remove - Composite the image over the background color.
Also of use are the -flatten and -background options:
-flatten - overlay all the image layers into a final image and may be used to underlay an opaque color to remove transparency from an image.
-background - sets the background color.
Start off using the convert command with a single image to see the effect and adjust to your liking. Once you’ve achieved the desired outcome, then use the mogrify command to batch process the chosen images.
Before getting into how to use Automator or Applescript in your workflow, use Terminal and the command line to see the effect on a single image. Copy one image to your ~/Desktop. In Terminal change the directory to ~/Desktop by typing the following command and pressing the Enter key:
cd ~/Desktop
Then choose the option you are looking for, -alpha remove for instance, type the following command and press the Enter key:
convert input-photo.png -alpha remove output-photo.png
You can check the alpha channel (transparency) and background in the Preview app, go View > Show Image Background from the menu bar.
Once you’re ready to batch proces, place all the photos you want to convert with the same command into one folder. Copy the folder to your ~/Desktop. Let’s assume you’ve labeled the folder “InPhotos”. It’s prudent to manipulate copies in case something goes amiss. In that event you can copy the folder with the originals again and start over. Create a new empty folder on your ~/Desktop and call it “OutPhotos”. Let’s also assume your home directory is called “Me”. The following command will process the photos from the InPhotos folder and put them in the OutPhotos folder:
mogrify -alpha remove -path /Users/me/Desktop/OutPhotos/ /Users/me/Desktop/InPhotos/*png
According to Apple Technical Note TN2065:
"when you use just a command name instead of a complete path, the shell uses a list of directories (known as your PATH) to try and find the complete path to the command. For security and portability reasons, do shell script ignores the configuration files that an interactive shell would read"
So, you need to use the full path to to ImageMagick commands, unlike in the shell where you can just use the command name.
To batch process using Automator, use the “Run Shell Script” action (note: retain the single space at the beginning of the last line):
/opt/ImageMagick/bin/mogrify \
-alpha remove \
-path /Users/Me/Desktop/OutPhotos/ \
/Users/Me/Desktop/InPhotos/*png
To batch process using Script Editor (Applescript), use the “do shell script” command:
do shell script "/opt/ImageMagick/bin/mogrify -alpha remove -path /Users/pd/Desktop/OutPhotos/ /Users/pd/Desktop/InPhotos/*png"
Further info on ImageMagick:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#alpha
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/masking/#remove
http://www.imagemagick.org/index.php
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-tools.php
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php
Examples:
The original PNG image:
-alpha off:
-alpha remove:
-background black -flatten:
-background blue -flatten:
-channel alpha -evaluate Divide 2:
-channel alpha -evaluate Divide 2 -background black -flatten:

How to save a Targa with Alpha Channels in PSE9

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