FranOnTheEdge opened this issue on Feb 20, 2011 · 17 posts
FranOnTheEdge posted Mon, 21 February 2011 at 8:03 AM
Quote - There are several ways to do this, but I will tell you one that I think is easiest to describe and for you to understand.
Go to your channels tab, and click on the eye to the left of all channels but the alpha channel you created. With your alpha now visible, do a ctrl-A, ctrl-C to copy the alpha.
Go to your layers tab, create a new layer, and ctrl-V to paste the copied alpha into a layer. You can now just do a save as... and select jpg. Don't worry about hurting your current layers -- photoshop will return to the layers as soon as the jpg is saved. You now have the alpha saved as a jpg and you can delete the copied layer in your document if you no longer need it.
Don't forget to turn your alpha channel off and make sure your color channels are turned back on after you are done.
Ah thanks. It was ctrl A that I was missing - I usually do that by using the rectangular selection tool and draw the box around the entire canvas - that's just the method I've used up to now, but if I can only remember it, ctrl A is certainly quicker.
However I notice that this method gives me black hole areas that are slightly smaller than I need - ( I did this myself by using the stored selection of holes that I had already expanded by 1 pixel (and fiddling with reducing feathering etc etc, so not quick) and using the fill bucket tool to flood fill the holes with black - adding a layer beneath the holes layer, filled with white and then merging these 2 layers gave me the jpg result - black holes on a white ground)
But that's a bit long winded and I was too tired last night to have that fully in my head, I had an inkling but my brain wasn't working too well. Lol!
I'm not sure... maybe the alpha method you describe would in fact be good enough, since you probably wouldn't be looking too closely at the grid... or would you? Hmmm I'll have to think about that.
Well now I have both I guess the thing to do would be to try both as transmaps in Bryce.
I guess that means I need to go do that.
Measure
your mind's height
by the shade it casts.
Robert Browning (Paracelsus)