Photoshop file to Shake -- alpha channel question

I've been staring at my screen for an hour wondering about this, even though I know it must be simple, so any advice is greatly appreciated:
I have a short video clip of a syringe with no needle. I want to add a VFX "needle" as a composite in Shake. I drew the needle as a .tiff file in Photoshop. I added an alpha channel in Photoshop, so I have R,G,B,A channels in my .tiff file drawing. The alpha channel has a white shape that corresponds to the needle drawing and black for the background. I was thinking that my alpha channel will mask out everything except the Photoshop "needle."
I bring the Photoshop needle file into Shake and set up my Shake script as follows: "Needle" into the left hand input of an Over node and Syringe video into the right-hand input of the Over node.
I was expecting to get just the needle "floating" on top of the syringe video clip, and I would position it to connect up with the syringe. What I got was the "needle" with its square white background floating on top of the syringe clip. My alpha channel from Photoshop did not mask out the white background.
But when I load the needle into the viewer by itself and put my cursor over it and hit the "A" key, the alpha channel is plainly there -- a white area in the shape of the needle and black everywhere else.
Also, in the Node View window, when I put the cursor over the needle and hit the "A" key, the thumbnail clearly shows the alpha channel, a white area in the shape of a needle and black everywhere else.
But when I load the Over node into the viewer, the needle is surrounded by a white background. Does it work to build your mask in Photoshop and bring it into Shake? Is there a parameter in Shake that you have to set to make the Photoshop alpha channel active?
Jim

Thanks much, Zebulun. Toggling premultiply worked. In a side experiment, I later saved my Photoshop image as a .psd file rather than .tiff and when I brought that one into Shake, it came in with its clipping-path/mask working without using premultiply in the Over node. Not sure what the difference would be in how Shake treats the two file formats, but they both achieve the same end result.

Similar Messages

Knuckleheaded Alpha Channel Question of the Week

OK...I rarely monkey around in Motion, but I have amazingly just created about 10 different animated versions of my client's logo for use in various films (cut in SD in FCP). I need to be able to library these rascals so I can just drop them into FCP when I need them.
However, and here is where the knucklehead deal enters the picture.
I am baffled as to how to export the logos out of Motion so there is no black background! I want to create a QT file of each version that I can library and then import into FCP. I have already checked the all of the Alpha channel questions dealing with this issue and the answers are like me and algebra in the 7th grade...huh?
Can somebody give me the kindergarten version of how to get rid of the black background behind my little purple animated logo.
Thanks in advance and I promise to close Motion and step away from the keyboard as soon as one of you mavens helps me solve my little non power user dilemma.

Easiest would be not to export at all, but save a different project file for each version - then just bring the Motion project file into FCP. As long as you have set the background to be transparent (Edit > Project Properties), then the project file will have transparency.
If you want to export, you need to choose a codec that supports an alpha channel, such as Animation or PNG.

Alpha Channel Question

Hello,
I have an animation with a white drop shadow on it that I animated in Aftereffects. I export the file from Aftereffects and no matter what I try the white drop shadow shows up as a dark shadow every time in Premiere as if it's matted with black. So I'm wondering if there is a setting I'm missing or something I need to do differently when importing to Premiere, or even when exporting from aftereffects, although I've exporting it several different way so far to no avail.
So here is what I have,
I'm using Adobe CS4 for AE and Premiere, on Windows 7
When I export from AE I'm using the color setting for unmatted (and I've tried it matted with black too just for fun, clearly that didn't work out for me:)
I've tried it as an avi and as a mov file too.
Sooo, in case your answer is for me to use Dynamic Link, I can't get that to work either. And I'm sure that is just user error since I've never used it before. I can get the aftereffects sequence to show up in my project files in Premiere, I can even get the animation to show up and play in the preview monitor, but when I put it on my Premiere sequence over the background it doesn't show up, just seems like a blank layer.
Any ideas?
Nina

Thanks for your replies! So I'm not very good at explaining myself. I did export (and by export i mean, make movie by adding it to the render queue) the file as both of you are recommending. As a movie file, with an alpha channel, all one file. The reason I was trying to do it separate next was because it wasn't displaying properly that way.
Finally, what I did as a work around, is just export the background I was using from premiere, import it into aftereffects, Put everything together in aftereffects and then render the finished file without using an alpha at all. In pic #1 so you can see how premiere cs4 won't properly display an animation with a white shadow behind it if it's imported with an alpha channel and placed on top of a background. #2 shows how it was supposed to look.. how it looked once I put everything together in Aftereffects instead. I just thought there should be a way to fix my problem without the extra step of exporting the background. But I don't think there is.
However,
THANK YOU for your replies and trys!!
(Oh yeah I should also mention that I did try, PSD sequence, Quicktime rgb+alpha, Lossless with alpha etc.. none of which seemed to work for what I was trying to do.)

How do I save a PNG file with an alpha channel in Photoshop CS5?

I have a PNG file created in Photoshop and I need to save it with an alpha channel for web purposes. I tried 'Save for Web & Devices' and selecting the Transparent box. Then, after saving, when I select 'get info' for the file it says there is no alpha channel. I'm stumped I can't seem to create an alpha channel from within Photoshop while I'm editing. Help!

If you save as a 24bit png with transparent checked photoshop will save the png with transparent background (ie alpha transparency). The png will appear transparent in a web browser.

Issue (aka bug): File compatibility and alpha channels

When I enable file compatibility mode on photoshop (so that previews and thumbnails show up), the thumbnail and preview will be wrong when there's an alpha channel in the channel palette. Specifically, the thumbnail will be masked by the top-most alpha channel in the channel palette. Consequently, there is sort of a work-around--if you create a plain white alpha channel and make sure it's the top-most alpha channel in the palette, then the preview and thumbnail come out fine. Luckily, this requires negligible extra memory.
If there's no alpha channel or I don't save alpha channels, the preview/thumbnail looks fine.
In spite of the work-around, a fix would be nice. It'd also be nice if there was a way to have a preview/thumbnails in Finder without the large memory penalty of compatibility mode.
Bart

Yes, everything in Bridge works great. However, the search function in Bridge is SLOW and a bit flaky (same problem on the Windows side as well) so I like to use spotlight instead for searching. Additionally, I like to use iPhoto to create collections of images that will contain photoshop files as well as others.
For now, it is workable for me to just use compatibility mode in photoshop and make sure all images with alpha channels have an all-white alpha channel at the top of the stack. The file size penalty is tolerable for now. If Apple ever fixes things on their end, then it's a simple script to convert my psd files back again.
Bart

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.

Inconsistant alpha channel import on .mov files

I am creating a movie using animation I create in Maya which is then composed in Shake with some alpha masks and exported using the animation codec to a .mov file into Motion. In reviewing my workflow (I'm about midway through things) I recognized I had an error in my screen sizes from one tool to the next and while it was not too noticeable, I thought it best to correct. This is where I should have left dead dogs lie.....
Anyway, this is best described with the flow I show below:
Motion Project Setup on ALL file types
720x480, 8bit, NTSC D1/DV
Lower First (Even)
29.97 Fps
Background Color - Black
Background - Transparent
Case 1:
Maya__->_Shake___->Anim Codec_________>Motion 720x480
720x486->720x486-->_Mil+_Col-->foo.mov-->File squished 6 pixels in Y
but alpha is present
Case 2:
720x480->720x480-->_Mil+_Col-->foo2.mov->File is 8 pixels narrow in X
alpha channel is not preset
I open foo.mov and foo2.mov in shake and look at the files and the
size is as follows:
foo.mov - 720x486
foo2.mov - 720x480
BOTH .mov files have the alpha channel present and the data is correct.
Just for grins, I output a file sequence of .tif files from shake of the
foo2.mov files and verified that the alpha channel was present in
photoshop and then did an import into motion with the same results of
foo2.mov. Size is shrunk by 8 pixels in X and no alpha channel.
It appears at least that Motion is making decisions based upon the screen
size and importing or not importing the alpha channel.
Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

Well, it is strange. Shake says it is 720 and for that matter so does Motion in the Media tab. Motion says it is 720x480 as does shake but when the clip is overlayed against the black background you can see 4 pixels on each side of the clip. The motion project file says it is 720x480 too.
UPDATE....
I just checked the motion file and deleted all of the media clips, but when I went to the media tab there was still one copy of the old 720x486 clip there. Every time and method I tried to delete it, it would crash motion. So, I copied all of the other text data I was using motion to generate, created a new motion project and pasted the text in. When I import the 720x480 file into the new project it lines up perfect. This must be a "feature mode" I must have gotten motion into.
Anyway, problem solved. Thanks much for your help Andy. I kept looking at this and not seeing the forest for the trees.
Much appreciated.

Create Photoshop stil with alpha channel?

I'm using dvMatte Pro3 to strip out the green screen.
I'd like to be able to generate a Photoshop CS4 file with the alpha channel, so that I could composite the background in Photoshop, but I haven't been able to get that to work.
Is there a way to do this, or do I generate a matte along with the still and layer them in Photoshop?
BTW - I've also had a bit of trouble directly taking a sequence of a freeze frame out to a Photoshop CS4 file. It creates one using 'Export using Quicktime Converstion', but it is only 100k and not a valid Photoshop file.
I've had to create a new freeze frame from the sequence (with my background rendered into the shot), and then export this freeze frame (not the sequence) using 'Export using Quicktime Converstion' to get a workable Photoshop file.
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

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

Enabling alpha channel for PNG file

I want to include a logo with a transparent background in an iMovie video, but when I import a PNG file with a transparent background, the background turns black. I think this is because the PNG needs to have alpha channel enabled.
When I attempt to save the file as a new version, the "alpha channel" option is greyed out. How can I save the file with the alpha channel enabled?

Hi,
You might want to visit this thread for more info on iMovie's handling of transparency:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13123097
It sounds like iMovie converts the PNG to a JPG internally for some cases (fit, crop, Ken Burns effect).
regards,
steve

Reducing QTw/alpha channel file size

I was just handed a 01:30min QuickTime file (with and Alpha Channel) that is 960 MB. The client wants the file size to be significantly (10mb/min) smaller, for internet/flash use. I figured out how to export it (thanks to the forums) without loosing the alpha channel, but even setting it to it lowest quality doesn't seem to be reducing it's size. Perhaps this request is impossible; I am unexperienced with using the Animation/Millions Colors + in QuickTime so maybe that size is normal because of the alpha channel?! I have no idea. So any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Let me know what my options are. Thank you so much.
Brittney
G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.6 Power PC 1.25 Memory

Yes the client will be importing/exporting into Flash. He's just looking to make the 900MB file smaller before importing it into Flash. I am not familiar with Flash and it's capabilites, but I'm assuming it can do the final compression for the web.
I did try the PNG and TGA codecs instead and they didn't seem to make the file signifiantly smaller (10MB differences), so it looks like I've hit a wall. Perhaps it's something beyond FCP's capablities.
Thank you for the suggestions
G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.6 Power PC 1.25 Memory

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?
I'm pulling my hair out here...

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

I can no longer open PSD Photoshop files on Preview

I can no longer open PSD Photoshop files on Preview since I installed Snow Leopard on my White MacBook. Whenever I double click a PSD file, it opens in Photoshop.
I used to force PSD files to be opened with Preview by "Get Info" (command + I ) and then Changing the option "open with" to Preview.
I also tried draggin the PSD file onto Preview, nothing happened.
Did Snow Leopard stop PSD support, or I'm missing something??

No, I can still open psd files in Preview, no problem, from both Preview's "Open" dialog and by drag 'n drop onto its icon. It opens simple psd files without error, files with an alpha channel may or may not open correctly, layers will display the topmost layer, if that layer has a mask it displays incorrectly. In short, nothing seems to have changed.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Probs mit Alpha-Channel

hallo, ich bin gerade dabei ein Plugin für Photoshop 6.0 zu schreiben und habe ein Problem mit dem Alpha-Channel. Wenn ich in Photoshop für den Alpha-Channel einen Wert von z.B. 172 eintrage, dann wird in meinem File ein Wert von 171 gespeichert! Hier poste ich mal den Code, den ich verwende um etwas zu schreiben (ich ändere das SimpleFormat-Beispiel ab) FileHeader header; if (gResult != noErr) return; if (!TSC ((Boolean)(!CheckForServices (globals)))) return; gResult = SetFPos (gStuff->dataFork, fsFromStart, 0); header.Width=gStuff->imageSize.h; header.Height=gStuff->imageSize.v; header.Identification=1331; if(gStuff->imageMode==plugInModeRGBColor && gStuff->planes==3) header.BitCount=24; else if(gStuff->imageMode==plugInModeRGBColor && gStuff->planes==4) header.BitCount=32; else { gResult=formatCannotRead; return; } WriteSome (globals, sizeof (FileHeader), &header); if (gResult != noErr) return; BufferID buffer; gPixelBuffer = 0; AllocateBuffer(header.Width*header.BitCount/8, &buffer); gPixelBuffer = buffer; gPixelData = LockBuffer (gPixelBuffer, FALSE); gStuff->data=gPixelData; if(header.BitCount==24) { gStuff->loPlane=0; gStuff->hiPlane=2; gStuff->colBytes=3; gStuff->rowBytes=3*header.Width; gStuff->planeBytes=1; for(int y=0;y<header.Height;y++) { gStuff->theRect.top = y; gStuff->theRect.left = 0; gStuff->theRect.bottom = y+1; gStuff->theRect.right = header.Width; AdvanceState (); WriteSome (globals,header.Width*header.BitCount/8,gPixelData); } if (gPixelBuffer != 0) { FreeBuffer (gPixelBuffer); gPixelBuffer = 0; gPixelData = 0; } } else if(header.BitCount==32) { gStuff->loPlane=0; gStuff->hiPlane=3; gStuff->colBytes=4; gStuff->rowBytes=4*header.Width; gStuff->planeBytes=1; for(unsigned int y=0;y<header.Height;y++) { gStuff->theRect.top = y; gStuff->theRect.left = 0; gStuff->theRect.bottom = y+1; gStuff->theRect.right = header.Width; AdvanceState (); WriteSome (globals,header.Width*header.BitCount/8,gPixelData); } if (gPixelBuffer != 0) { FreeBuffer (gPixelBuffer); gPixelBuffer = 0; gPixelData = 0; } } gStuff->data = NULL;

rdl33 wrote:
Alpha Channel works well with solid colours but leaves a lot of "blotches" in textured surfaces. Apple forgot to include an Eraser. Do we have to move the graphic to Photoshop to finish the job?
There are certainly images where only Photoshop or another image editor can do a clean job. However, depending on the shape of the area you want to remove, you may be able to simulate it by adding geometric shapes that cover the bad areas. There are other tricks, like taking screen shots or copying part of the picture using Preview, and so on. It really depends on the image and the shape.
When I need a good image editor I use Photoshop. When I want a free one to install temporarily on a computer that does not belong to me, I use gimp out of old habit, but there are other ones out there.

Alpha Channel for graphics

Hi,
I placed a 32 bit targa file with an alpha channel in my project as a drop zone but it retains a white background. Is there anywhere to specify in DVD Studio Pro to recognize the alpha channel or will it not accept an alpha channel? I swear, the manual is totally useless.

I figured this out. In case anyone is wondering....
The Targa with alpha channel wasn't working. But a Photoshop file with the Color Profile of NTSC and saved with a transparent alpha channel background worked.
ciao.

Photoshop file to Shake -- alpha channel question

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