Hi people! I need help with getting photoshop to save images which contain *degrees* of transparency.. What I mean by this is I can get an image, select a colour and make it transparent to save to a file, but I can't create an image which may have edges which blend into the transparency colour which I would like to get so I could, save semi-transparent images for use in my game engine for example.. Can someone please give me some advice on how this is done?

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Original post by Anonymous Poster you have to move your transparency to an alpha mask. there's no way that i know of to get the "transparency" to automatically export to the alpha channel of an image format.

So an alpha mask will allow me to save the image to a file, lets say a .tga file, and preserve the transparency information?

So how do I do that?

Hmm. Well, what I would do is create the image on one or more layers, with a transparent layer underneath. Then select the area(s) you want to blend into the transparency, use the feather selection option, then press delete. The area deleted will be a fuzzy area which is totally transparent in the middle and partially transparent around the edges. Then when you're happy with it you merge visible (not flatten layers!) and save as a file format such as png which allows transparency.

Note - you cannot save partial transparency to GIFs.

But, sure, with TGAs. AP's suggestion will work perfectly!

Other options are to take your image and go to the Channels tab of your Layers palette. Down at the bottom, you can just click the "Create New Channel" button, and it will be your alpha. From there, you can paint just like normal in grayscale.

Of course, if you want to start off your alpha with a selection, just make the selection (in RGB), keep it selected or save it (Select > Save Selection), and then hop back to the Channels tab and "Save Selection as Channel" to create the alpha.

As usual, white is opaque, black isn't.

When you save, make sure you save the Alpha value as well (I believe you have to actually make the alpha channel visible to do this).

Make sure you use channels and not masks, also.

edit: S/S - Ooh. I didn't know that would work. Cool!!

Here is an example of an image where the white background fades to transparent.

(Extra note - for some reason, the default way to save a png is 'as a copy'. Don't do this, uncheck the 'save as a copy' box when you save.)

The picture background doesn't seem to be transparent.. looks like a terquoisy colour.. Is it a browser problem or?

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Original post by ArchangelMorph The picture background doesn't seem to be transparent.. looks like a terquoisy colour.. Is it a browser problem or?

Yes it's a browser problem, I've run into that problem before. It displays properly with firefox but not with some other browsers. If you save the file and open it in photoshop it should look properly transparent.