Smackdown Here Comes The Pain Save File
Novella Poinsett
On a previous version off PS, I used to be able to create an Alpha Channel on a PNG for the area I want to be transparent. Ever since a few updates ago, whenever I do this and Export as PNG, I loose the Alpha Channel.
An alpha channel in itself does not define transparency in Photoshop. Yes, it does in some other applications for specialist uses, but Photoshop uses alpha channels for a wide variety of purposes, not just transparency.
I don't follow your issue totally. Try the method I've outlined below. If it doesn't work please elaborate a little more on the method you have been using to export out your files. Include a screen shot if it helps.
I would do this for every texture and the game would load the texture, and they would save as Layer 1 and not locked (If the texture did have or did not have transparency). I noticed when the texture had transparency and I used this method, a white outline would appear around the texture, for example (On the Left):
Whenever I saved a file as a PNG, it used to save as Layer 1 without a padlock. Now when I save as a PNG since a few updates ago, it is locked and set as Background if there is no transparency. Using the Export process works for what I need (To save as a PNG but not set as a background).
This worked for me! In the past I would use the Alpha Channel saved into png to get rid of the halo around artwork. I followed your direction, I put the transfered the alpha to layer mask as you suggessted to get rid of the white halo around my png logo.
Hey there - this is unfortunately not the real solution here I think. I ran into the same issue lately...and was very surprised to learn that because PS uses alpha channels for things other than transparency, they seem to be built into PNG exporting in a very unusual way (I have seen the use of Alpha for transparency described here and elsewhere as "niche cases" but in actuality using alpha channels to pack extra data into a 32-Bit .PNG is very common in 3D modelling and definitely not out of the ordinary - so much so in fact that substance painter has this functionality built in).
The only difference between these two is that one was exported with transparency enabled as described above (and same result with all other PNG export methods from Photoshop). HOWEVER, neither of them is actually using the alpha channel in this example: these both simply have RGB plugged into the albedo node in a 3D modelling software, and the Alpha channel output is unused (not plugged into anything at all). So the exporting of 32-Bit PNG RGB data in PS is somewhat tainted by the transparency somehow rather than simply being exported as its own channel packed to Alpha independently of the other three.
It used to be that the alpha channels appeared in the alpha channel area. but perhaps that was confusing to new users so they changed that? One thing I'm not clear about is how to get rid of the PNG alpha channel once you've made the png. Better save your original photoshop file just to be certain you can get to the original masked image I'm not sure how to do this, I tried searching it quickly but did not find a solution that gave you anything but white background where the transperency used to be, intead of the underlying image.
Thanks for this follow-up response. However to answer your confusion about the issue - the steps you described are exactly what I did in my example images above. This is a limitation of the way that Photoshop handles alpha channels on export for .PNGs with transparency. I've heard the problem described elsewhere as being because photshop stores transparency and alphas separately. If you open a 4-channel .PNG, you will find in the channels tab that photoshop only has 3: R, G, amd B - and Alpha is treated separately and uniquely.
I will note that you you do the same process with .TGA files, however, there is no such issue with the alphas not saving on channel export. Photoshop likes to overwrite Alphas as white for PNGs, and to get it to export transparency as alpha, you have to use a mask as you describe rather than adding an alpha channel in the usual way...however on export, you will find that the RGB channel values are also shifted from their original values. Yet with a .TGA this works as it should, and the 'save a copy' window for .TGA has an additional checkbox which you can select to make it export alphas as the 4th channel, making it a 32-bit TGA. This should be an option for .PNG, but is not.
So while you can do texture packing with TGA files, this isn't ideal of course because a .TGA file will be significantly larger than a .PNG since it does not take advantage of the same level of compression you will get from a .PNG. The two aims of packing textures into single channels are (1) to reduce draw calls in 3d software, and (2) to reduce memory usage. By forcing us to use .TGA instead of .PNG, Photoshop essentially nullifies its usefulness in one of these two areas.
It's not the end of the world, but I wanted to be clear that this is very much a photoshop problem with how it handles .PNG transparency and alpha and not an issue with the file format or the target software I'm handling the .PNGs with. The fact that it works fine with .TGA also demonstrates this. While you should be able to use an additional 8-bit/pixel channel on a 32-bit .PNG to store an alpha map, photoshop does not support this capability properly and the 'export alphas' checkbox in the 'save a copy' winow is grayed out.
I thought Jimmy had a well reasoned answer, and honestly it made me feel better. Until I read the comments on the article, some of which I found very disturbing. I saw that you commented on it as well. The long list of someone's copied and pasted quotes from various saints about "the fewness of the saved" was upsetting to me. What do you make of those?
I approach these questions from a two sided perspective. I used to be something of a so-called "cafeteria Catholic," similar to the people mentioned in the column of Jimmy's. I was raised in the Church but some of its teachings were undermined for me at every turn. Most Catholics who are under 40 were raised by parents and even grandparents who flat out rejected the Church's encyclical on birth control, and had no problem telling their kids about their point of view. The Church's teachings about sexual matters and birth control were barely touched on in my middle school CCD (presented as "Don't do it" with no context or explanation), and then never brought up again. Sometimes it's brought up in Catholic pre-Cana classes, but by that time, it's usually too late. It's not hard to see why people, including myself, were able to be conned (for lack of a better word) by the media, their high school sex ed classes, their peers, their own family members, and in most cases even their fellow parishioners. Eventually, inexplicably, I "came around" and rejected all of that, went to Reconciliation, and am now living a pretty "by the book" Catholic life (using NFP, wouldn't think of skipping a Sunday or Holy Day Mass, etc.). Great, right? Yes. But I'm acutely aware that the majority of my Catholic brethren are still in the place that I was a few years ago, and may never "come around" as I did. I worry about them. However I can say this: The vast majority of those people are nothing like the "likely hell bound" people Pope Benedict described in Spe Salvi and quoted by Jimmy: "There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves....." This was never me, and I don't think it is the case for most of the rest of the Catholic population who is using birth control, skips the occasional Mass, etc. Even though I was doing something I knew the Church said was wrong, knowing a thing and truly understanding and internalizing it are different. I genuinely and truly never intended to reject God. I always loved Him and always strove to live a moral life as my internal conscience dictated. The only way I can explain it is to say that I had some type of defect in my faith, or understanding of it, which was caused by years of societal narrative and bad example, that allowed me to basically live under a delusion that it was OK to do something the Church said I couldn't. This seems to be what Pope Benedict was getting at in Spe Salvi when he talked about "compromises with evil" made by people (the vast majority) who were still basically good, and could be saved and purified in purgatory, unlike the truly evil ones who cannot be saved. All of this made me feel much better, until I read the combox on Jimmy's article, where some people said God accepts no excuses, and quoted saints who basically said almost everyone goes to hell, etc. What say you? I value your opinion (and Jimmy's).
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4)
Now the tricky part about all this in the Church's intellectual tradition is that, so long as you don't claim knowledge or certitude, you can be all over the map in your speculations about the census statistics in hell. So, for instance, when Augustine and various Fathers of the Church speculate on the manyness of the damned they are perfectly within their rights to do so. However, we must also bear in mind that no matter how many Fathers and theologians offer their speculations on the fewness of the saved, what we still have, at the end of the day, is a lot of speculation. We do not have "the teaching of the Church" because the Church, in fact, has never ventured an opinion, much less a doctrine, on the population of hell. An idea does not become "the teaching of the Church" simply because a lot of Catholics speculate about it. This is why, despite centuries of speculation about Limbo or the Great Monarch or the antichrist arising from the tribe of Dan, such speculations are not "the teaching of the Church" but simply the same guesses made by a lot of people--and never confirmed or denied by the Magisterium.
c80f0f1006