Sorry, I need some more help.  I know some of you are frustrated with my "newbie" questions, so I've been trying to not bother you guys.

I've been managing pretty good with that online course at About.com, but I've run into a snag and I see others at the lesson forum have too, but no one has responded with an answer in a few months, so I doubt I'll be able to get my answer there.

Anyway, I'm working on a lesson that has to do with Alpha Channels. There is an image to download and I'm supposed to colour in the butterfly with the help of the alpha channels.

It's "Exercise 2"

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/bllps504i.htm

I opened the image.

I see 5 channels in the palette area in addition to the RGB, Red, Green and Blue channels.

I clicked on "Wing Outside" and made sure that the "eye" next to RGB was visible (so that I could see the image in colour and not in gray scale), and then clicked on the "Paint Can" and changed my desired colour to "Purple". But when I click on the area to flood fill, the square of colour that was purple changes to black.

Repeating the above, only this time instead of clicking on the channel in the palette area, I went to "Selection" and "Load Selection". I got the moving line around the area, and again when I tried to flood fill with Purple, the square of colour that was purple changed to black.

I have no idea how you use those saved channels in the palette area. I sure can't get them to flood fill with colour.

Can someone give me clearer instructions on how to do that? The lesson didn't cover flood filling the alpha channel selections, just creating them.

Here is the page prior to the Exercise.

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/bllps504h.htm
 

When you are doing the fill, are you still in the Channels Palette? That would be the only way that I can think of where you'd be filling in black. After you've made the selection so you have the "marching ants" go back to the Layers Palette to do your fill. On an image like this one, I'd usually do a new layer for each selection. That way I could play with filters and the blending mode for each filled area.

Spot on bushi, y beat me by an hour...that's what I get for having lunch first...LOL...this is an error in method that took me about 2 days of frusteration to figure our, and man o man did I feel dumb when I finally did, heh heh heh

Yes, been there done that too! It's one of those lessons that you don't soon forget. ;)

Quote - I clicked on "Wing Outside"...

You should Ctrl-click on "Wing Outside", not just click -- this brings up the crawling ants indicating that you've made a selection around any white areas in the "Wing Outside" alpha channel.

Then, once you have that selection, click on your RGB channel, then your Layers palette tab to go back to the layers, THEN flood fill the selection with purple.

:)

Quote - When you are doing the fill, are you still in the Channels Palette?

Yes, I have been working in the channels palette because I didn't know otherwise.  The lesson on alpha channels didn't say not to.

Quote - You should Ctrl-click on "Wing Outside", not just click -- this brings up the crawling ants indicating that you've made a selection around any white areas in the "Wing Outside" alpha channel.

Then, once you have that selection, click on your RGB channel, then your Layers palette tab to go back to the layers, THEN flood fill the selection with purple.

That works well.

Thank you everyone.

Nothing like putting up a lesson and leaving out vital information in order to accomplish the task. 

Quote - Yes, been there done that too! It's one of those lessons that you don't soon forget. ;)

hope you are right~

some time i forget very fast...it;s a problem for people who want do the job.
lessons very important beacuse you paid,you should write down keep in the note book,i think that more easy for keep don't forget

good luck