Minumum sufficient commands to create PSD containing transparent alpha channel

I was recently typesetting some leaflets in InDesign under time pressure. I had a JPG file with a white background and wanted to create a PSD from it in Photoshop CS5 with an alpha channel making the background transparent.
I managed this in the end by blundering around, but the help file is no help, and the obvious way of creating a layer mask doesn't work.
I'd like to know the minimum sufficient command sequence to do it.
Suppose we've got this in Photoshop, with the bit we want already selected:
Double clicking the background layer and then clicking ADD LAYER MASK looks good, but it doesn't create an alpha channel. It actually creates a channel named "Layer 0 mask" but if you save it in a PSD and then import into InDesign it is not transparent.
There doesn't seem to be a "convert layer mask to alpha channel" command. Nor a "make alpha channel from selection" command.
There is a button at the bottom of the CHANNELS tab that's named "create new channel" and if you click it when a selection is active it does create a new layer named "Alpha 1", but unfortunately it is not the wanted mask but rather just the path of the marching ants.

Yes, this does work. Don't know why it didn't for me yesterday.
There's no need to delete the background because in my example, after unlocking the padlock and adding layer mask, there's only one layer there. It does create, as I said above, an additional channel named "Layer 0 mask" which is what one would want as an alpha channel.
If I SAVE AS PSD, the box to include LAYERS is ticked and the box to include ALPHA CHANNEL is greyed out, but InDesign still treats it as transparent.
If I take the selection and SAVE SELECTION AS NEW CHANNEL, it creates a second channel looking exactly like the "Layer 0 mask" one above, but if I then SAVE AS PSD the box to include ALPHA CHANNEL is ticked. So the channel created by ADD LAYER MASK is of a different ilk than the one created by SAVE SELECTION AS NEW CHANNEL, although this is not apparent from the CHANNELS tab. Slightly confusing.

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Create Photoshop stil with alpha channel?

I'm using dvMatte Pro3 to strip out the green screen.
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Is there a way to do this, or do I generate a matte along with the still and layer them in Photoshop?
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Always interested in a better method?

Les Caudle wrote:
However, I'm not getting a PSD with the background as an alpha channel.
You won't. The foreground contains the alpha channel. The background is what appears behind the alpha channel
Here's what I've done.
1. Strip out background in FCP7 with dvMatte Pro. The sequence contains a single freeze frame I wanted to output to Photoshop.
I am assuming your clip is a person standing in front of a green screen and you have keyed out the green. That leaves an alpha channel in the shape of your person.
2. Render sequence.
this is probably the mistake you are making although FCP6 and 7 were said to have fixed the export issue. You are attempting to export a rendered sequence. The matte has been filled so there is no longer an alpha channel.
3. As I've been unable to export the sequence to Photoshop (just creates a 100k file that is not a PSD), I take a freeze frame of my render.
I still don't know what this means; telling me the same thing twice is not an explanation so I will disregard is irrelevant.
4. I select this 'freeze frame' and Export using Quicktime Converstion, set the type to image, set it to Photoshop and to Millions+.
All you are doing is exporting a full frame of video. It has no alpha channel. but even if you separated the two video layers, your background plate still has no alpha channel that contains any valid information. It will appear completely solid white if you viewed it using the alpha button in the Canvas.
5. The resulting PSD has the background stripped out, but it is black, not transparent. So, I'm obviously doing something wrong?
Possibly the 'freeze frame' I create is not in 'millions+' - so when it is exported there is no alpha?
I'm totally lost now, why do you care about the foreground? I thought you wanted the background with an alpha? Are you looking at the alpha-only view in Photoshop?
I take full responsibility and apologize for not being able to see through any translation errors that are creeping into our discussion. Like most Americans, I only know English (and enough Spanish to be able stay out of trouble at a Mexican restaurant).
bogiesan

How to Validate Transparent Alpha Channel in .mov File?

I'm trying to create transparent flv files to embed in Abobe Captivate.
I shot and keyed some test greenscreen (yes, I have the checkerboard in the canvas) and have tried exporting it a number of ways (rendered/unrendered, recompressed all frames/not, etc, etc) and converted it to flv a number of ways (change mov to flv, encoding software), but when I embed it and play it back I have a black background.
How can I validate that my .mov file contains the alpha channel and it's transparent?
Second, when the .mov is correct, will changing .mov to .flv keep the transparent alpha channel or do I need us encoding software with a codec that supports transparent alpha, e.g., On2 V6?
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Hi - To validate your exported (Animation codec, Millions of Colors+ ?) Qt movie has the alpha quickly, re-import the exported movie back into FCP and load it to the viewer with the viewer set to display checkerboard as a background.
Can't help with the rest.
MtD
Message was edited by: Meg The Dog to fix what I was trying to say

Transparent alpha channel in flv not working

Bringing a raw avi file into Premiere Pro 2, I applied a
color key effect to the background to make it transparent. I then
exported it as a flv file using Adobe's Media Encoder. The video
codec was set for On2 VP6 with the "encode alpha channel" box
checked. Importing this flv file into Flash 8 using Progressive
download in the wizard, I placed the flv on layer 2 and a
background image on layer 1. When I play it, the background image
pops up, then the flv, but the background image doesn't show
through the transparent area of the flv. Any suggestions on what
I'm doing wrong?

Did you ever figure out what the fix is for your problem with
transparent video? I'm having the exact same issue and have tried
everything -- still no transparency (although my keying was done in
AE).

Why Does Reading A Gif Or Png Containing Transparent/Alpha Pixels Fail?

I'm trying to read in gif or png with transparent pixels into a BufferedImage so that I can create a font inside of Java. Right now, I'm defaulting to the assumption that the background of the font image is white. However, I want to make it so that the font background is whatever pixels happen to be transparent. The images I'm reading in have only two colors: black and white. I set all the white pixels to transparent when creating the images in hopes that I could do a check for all pixels with Alpha < 255. I have tried numerous possible solutions, such as saving the png files with different applications, ImageIO.read, and Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().createImage, and JAI.The types of the resulting BufferedImages have varied between TYPE_BYTE_BINARY, TYPE_BYTE_INDEXED, and TYPE_CUSTOM. What I want is TYPE_INT_ARGB so I can get the dang alpha pixels.
1. Is there a way to read in alpha pixels of png or gif (doesn't have to be both) from within the main Java libraries as a BufferedImage with type TYPE_INT_ARGB? If so, how?
2. Failing that, is there a way to read in alpha pixels of png or gif (doesn't have to be both) by using a decent external library as a BufferedImage with type TYPE_INT_ARGB? If so, how and with which one?
This has been frustrating the heck out of me, since I thought this was something very simple to do, but I've spent two days poring over the entire Internet for a possible solution.

package aerobush.ocr.translator;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.Image;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.datatransfer.Clipboard;
import java.awt.datatransfer.DataFlavor;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.DataInputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.imageio.ImageReader;
import javax.imageio.stream.ImageInputStream;
import javax.media.jai.JAI;
import javax.media.jai.PlanarImage;
import com.sun.imageio.plugins.png.PNGMetadata;
public class ImageUtils
     static public BufferedImage readPng1(
               File pngFile ) {
          try {
               BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(pngFile);
               return image;
          catch (Exception e) {}
          return null;
     static public BufferedImage readPng2(
               File pngFile ) {
          try {
               BufferedImage image = (BufferedImage) Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().createImage(
                         pngFile.getAbsolutePath());
               return image;
          catch (Exception e) {}
          return null;
     static public BufferedImage readPng3(
               File pngFile ) {
          try {
               final PlanarImage planar = JAI.create(
                         "FileLoad",
                         pngFile.getAbsolutePath());
               BufferedImage img = planar.getAsBufferedImage();
               return img;
          catch (Exception e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
          return null;
     static public BufferedImage readPng4(
               File pngFile ) {
          try {
               ImageInputStream stream = ImageIO.createImageInputStream(new FileInputStream(
                         pngFile));
               ImageReader r = ImageIO.getImageReadersByFormatName(
                         "png").next();
               r.setInput(
                         stream,
                         true,
                         false);
               PNGMetadata metadata = (PNGMetadata) r.getImageMetadata(0);
               BufferedImage i = r.read(0);
               if (!i.getColorModel().hasAlpha() && metadata.tRNS_present) {
                    int alphaPix = (metadata.tRNS_red << 16) | (metadata.tRNS_green << 8)
                              | (metadata.tRNS_blue);
                    BufferedImage tmp = new BufferedImage(
                              i.getWidth(),
                              i.getHeight(),
                              BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
                    for (int x = 0; x < i.getWidth(); x++) {
                         for (int y = 0; y < i.getHeight(); y++) {
                              int rgb = i.getRGB(
                                        x,
                                        y);
                              rgb = (rgb & 0xFFFFFF) == alphaPix ? alphaPix : rgb;
                              tmp.setRGB(
                                        x,
                                        y,
                                        rgb);
                    i = tmp;
               return i;
          catch (IOException e) {}
          return null;
}Edited by: oldbushie on Sep 13, 2009 2:07 PM
Edited by: oldbushie on Sep 13, 2009 2:08 PM

FCPX/Motion - creating a circle with alpha channel?

This film has a lot of scientific apparatus. I need to be able to circle certain elements as they are described/discussed. I crudely made myself a red circle on black background in Pages, exported out as a PDF, then tried to find a composite mode in FCPX that would get rid of the black. The closest I got was a sort of semi-transparent red circle.
I'm wondering what the easiest way to create a red circle (red opaque, background transparent) might be, that I can drop onto an FCPX timeline and manipulate?
If I have to use Motion, I want to be able to just create the circle there. I don't want to work on the sequences in Motion (too much as yet unpredictable about the sequences). I want to do everything in FCPX if I can (other than maybe constructing the circle).
All ears,
Ben

Aha!
There it is! Tra-la. Right in FCPX. Perfect. Thank you T. And Andy, I was looking at Ripple Training the other day ... so will go back and check out some more possibilities.
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I would so love to be able to create controlled dissolves, where one image metamorphoses into the next ...
That, and Joe's Filters - the amazing 'Joe's Colour Glow' filter ... that allowed you to pump and bloom the whites. Joe has retired I believe, from making filters. The nice thing about his Colour Glow was that there was no yellow in it, no alternative 'colour', only the white ... playing with it allowed me make sequences, when required, look very very 'clean' ... the whites were so super white. I can't find anything in FCPX that does this. The 'Bloom' I think allows me to play a bit with the whites, but it then adds a yellowish tint that I can't get rid of.
There, two little wish list thingies I've been wanting to find for a long time. Soft Wipes, and Joe's Colour Glow filter.

How to import an alpha channel from .PSD file?

I have a photoshop file (.psd) with an alpha channel. When I import this file into AE, I do not see the alpha being available or perhaps I don't know how to find it. I've followed this instruction but nothing happens afterwards. Okay, so my question is, when I drop the .psd file into my comp, how or where do I enble the alpha channel?

I am not sure this a bug.
It could be. But note that I can produce an identical case in which this behavior is not a bug.
The thing is, in the world of video applications, Alpha Channel means "fourth channel used to store transparency values".
In Photoshop, it normally means the same thing, but it can also mean "arbitrary channel created and stored for whichever reason the user may want it on the future". Typically, to save a selection so that it can be retrieved later. In fact, you can have many of these arbitrary channels.
So, imagine this scenario:
1. User makes a selection of the outline of the house.
2. Instead of cutting the pixels outside the house, or creating a layer mask, the user goes to the Channels panel and hits the "Save selection as channel" button (or equivalent menu command).
Photoshop creates a fourth channel (or even a fifth or a sixth if there were additional channels already), which is called "Alpha" but the user never did anything to make the information in that channel produce transparency.
If after making the selection, the user would have cutted pixels or created a layer mask, then that operation would be relfected on what we normally consider as Alpha channel.
In this case, what you can do is go to channels pannel, control click the thumbnail so that the channel is loaded as selection, then create a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Current selection) from that selection. That's it.

Alpha Channel - can't export to psd after update?

Been doing this for years... from After effects CC
Composition, Save frame as, File, Photoshop, RGB+Alpha etc - and its worked fine exported with transparency like you'd expect.
Updated Photoshop CC this morning and suddenly alpha channel not being recognised...
Bug...or have I gone mad in the last 24 hours??

Maybe I misunderstand your question but Photoshop CC opens psd files with Alpha Channels just fine here, so it seems likely that the issue is with the files.
But you seem to be mixing Alpha Channels and Transparency – so what are you talking about exactly?
Could you post screenshots to illustrate what you are doing and what results you get?

Best method of turning white bg into transparent alpha

I often get product shots that are on a seamless white background. They sometimes have soft shadows which I find particularly hard to extract. I need to get transparency/alpha channel in the actual image for After Effects, so the Layer Style "blend if" trick won't work since I have to use it outside of Photoshop. If it was shot on green, I could easily extract the image and retain the translucent soft shadows with a AE chromakey.
The new Quick Select Tool and Refine Edge don't seem particularly well suited for non-organic hard edged surfaces. Any other tricks or tips?

try image>calculations to make a new channel then use that to create an image mask to separate the shad
.i have no idea why you would do it this way when you can set the LAYER MODE to multiply in both PS & AE and that would do the job far better

Saving transparent tga files without making alpha channel

I've been using Photoshop 7.0 for awhile now. I haven't upgraded to any other version yet because the original 7.0 actually has a certain bug in it that has been very useful.
The bug has something to do with transparency, alpha channels, and TGA files. Somehow this bug lets me save transparent TGA files without creating an alpha channel. All I have to do is save the image as 32 bit and it will come out exactly how I made it. No white backgrounds, just smooth transparent edges. Its easy since I don't have to waste time manually painting a black/white map. I'm wondering if theres a way to do this in the newer versions, but after trying the demos it seems like there isn't.
I don't know much about alpha channels, but I make dozens of TGA images with clear backgrounds so I really hope there is an easier way around this. To have to manually color the clear/solid areas with a paintbrush and lasso for each image seems like a nightmare. I wanted to get CS4 but I think it would be easier to just stick with this old version for this reason.
If anyone understands me and could offer some insight, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

To my recollection this isn't a bug. I read in the forums awhile back that Adobe changed how the TGA format works with transparency and apparently they received complaints about it so they changed it back. I imagine there probably is a KB article about it.
However creating an alpha channel isn't a big deal especially if you have the transparency already done. Go to your actions panel and load the video actions, you will find an action that converts the transparency of all visible layers into an alpha channel.

How do i make psd files transparent?

How do i make psd images transparent when I drag and drop the layer onto the stage on flash cs6?
For example the way iv been doing it up until now was saving as a psd then going to file import to library on flash. This is very very time consuming and would be much easyer if i can just drag and drop the photoshop layer onto the stage, but the problem is that the image gets a white box around it and isn't transparent when i do that.
Is there an option in photoshop or flash to fix this and make the background trasnparent?

Reminds me of Yoshi from Mario Bros
I know what you'd like to do but as the first reply mentioned, you can't do that. Until Photoshop is updated to copy with transparency intact to the Windows clipboard, you won't be able to do that. The reason I linked and showed a screenshot of the software GIMP is to prove that it's a Photoshop limitation, not a limitation of Flash or the Windows clipboard.
Knowing that fact, there is no way for you to copy/paste drag/drop from Photoshop directly into Flash.
Cartoon animating is essentially identical to how most games work. You create one large master image that contains all the possible variations of your subject (a face, a car, etc) and import that into a game. You do the same when animating, only you're keeping them all separate instead of one image.
Knowing your experience with Flash is small and growing, I'm not going to make the most optimal recommendation. I'll stick to 2 things I mentioned before but elaborate on them.
1) Save your assets to actual PNGs with transparency, then import into Flash.
The reason I'd recommend this the most is because of Flash's update function (which I will explain) and it can be automated a bit (also will be explained).
So I grabbed a Yoshi sprite sheet and say I made a new pose as you mentioned. In Photoshop I'd then select and copy this new pose alone, with transparency:
As you know, once you do that you can bring up a 'New Image' dialog and it will already have the size of your copied pixels (with trimmed transparency):
You can see the size is correct and the preset is clipboard. After that you just paste your new image in and turn off the background to gain transparency. Then you save it out as a separate file. I always use Save For Web for a pinch of file size optimization and overall control:
Again, I realize this is a lot more than you want to do, but all of this can be automated which will be explained after making it virtually a single button push operation.
Now we have the image as a separate new PNG image with transparency intact. This image should be imported into Flash's library:
Now you both have a physical separate copy of this pose in a PNG file (which can be useful for many reasons) and Flash can use that file with it's built in update command for very quick changes.
Now say you touch up a pose a bit. I'll make it really obvious and change the entire hue. You make your changes in Photoshop, follow the same process (even making size changes to the original image), eventually overwriting the PNG you created for that pose:
Now in Flash, all you need to do is use the Update function. Right-click on the image in your library, select Update. Because this is a file with a physical location, that is all that is needed to change the image in Flash:
The power in this is if you make sweeping changes to dozens or hundreds of PNGs, you can do this in one command in Flash. Select all the changed images and hit Update and all your changes will be done at once. You can't do things like this when you copy and paste directly into Flash.
That said, almost all of the steps above can be automated using Photoshops Actions panel. No need to reinvent the wheel, Actions are fully explained here:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7448a.h tml
I would recommend recording the action after you make your marquee selection around what you want to save as a PNG. Record right up to Save For Web and stop there. Then in the future you press the hotkey you assign and it will extract your selection, open a new document, paste it in, disable the background for transparency and bring you to the dialog you can name the image in. That's pretty easy and automated. Then just import into Flash and enjoy the benefits.
2) Use Photoshop to create the assets, then a different program to copy/paste into Flash
Not ideal to need 2 programs, however if you really want to copy and paste directly into Flash, this is the way to go. Get any program that can read the PSD file format, open your PSD in it. If you have enough RAM this really shouldn't be an issue (PS and GIMP side by side, same file open):
As you make changes to the PSD, just hit reload or revert in your "copy with transparency" supporting program, copy what you need, paste into Flash:
I'll explain some of the advantages of the previous workflow if you'd like but I think this is enough information overload for now.

Is there a way to create a semi-transparency with Java?

I would like to be able to create a semi transparent form and I was does anyone know how to do this?

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.geom.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import javax.imageio.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
public class CompositeTest extends JPanel {
    private BufferedImage backImage, frontImage;
    private float alpha = 1;
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        backImage = ImageIO.read(new URL("http://today.java.net/jag/bio/JagHeadshot-small.jpg"));
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Event 1053 ActiveSync doesn't have sufficient permissions to create

Hello all and thanks in advance.
Exchange 2007 to 2013 co-existence. All email now routed (proxies) through 2013 server. For everyone, Outlook functional, OWA functional and for everyone else on the old server, EAS is functional. I only have three clients on the new server.
Outlook and OWA are functional, EAS is not. Two of those accounts get the following message on the 2013 server:
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Additional information: Access is denied.
Active directory response: 00000005: SecErr: DSID-031521D0, problem 4003 (INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0".
Make sure the user has inherited permission granted to domain\Exchange Servers to allow List, Create child, Delete child of object type "msExchangeActiveSyncDevices" and doesn't have any deny permissions that block such operations.
These two accounts are also part of several 'protected' security groups such as domain admins and or enterprise admins. I've seen this KB: http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2579075
One of these accounts is mine. Security for my user object is NOT inherited. I went to make the change in the article and it said 77 items were going to be changed. "Warning. The change you are about to make will result in 77 permissions
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Is this normal for AD objects that are part of protected groups? What is the best way to get through this?
Thanks,
Willis

Hello
after enable inherited not add "extra" permission for user like domain admin, but exchange trusted subsystem have got enugh permission on user and user can access to email from phone.
after user registering mobile in exch server you can disable inherited but remember when user have got problem. :)
sorry my english

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Hi hello,
I have been playing around with muse, i hope someone can help me with this really frustating issue. I have seen all the videos about how to create content that fits dynamically on the page but i dont find the way.
I am trying to create a container, and putting inside content that will make bigger this container. I tried with accordions, tabbed panels, slideshows and nothing works well.
Besides after downloading the other examples on the web of adobe, the examples of the containers have been lock and there is no way to unlock them ( even with the command " unlock all on Page") .
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Hi Victor,
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Thanks,
Vikas

Are there any command can list all container and XML doc which in DB

When I use BDB XML shell,
are there any command can list all container or xml document which in database,
maybe like command dir(in windows), can list all exist directory and file.
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Henry Wang

Hi Henry,
When I use BDB XML shell,
are there any command can list all container or xml
document which in database,
maybe like command dir(in windows), can list all
exist directory and file.If you type "help" in the dbxml shell you'll get a list of all the commands available. As you will observe, you can use the "getDocuments" command to retrieve all the documents within a container. You will have to open the container first.
If you want to list all the files within a directory you'll need to simply use the command prompt's "dir" (naming all your containers within a directory in the <container_name.dbxml> would allow you get the list by running a "dir *.dbxml" command).
Not sure that this is what you really want, but if you would like to keep track of all the containers within a directory, or other directories, you can use a container with a special role, that of a catalogue, to hold the list of all created containers on disk, and eventually other specific information.
Regards,
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Minumum sufficient commands to create PSD containing transparent alpha channel

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