Sorry to be a bother after the help... OK, when I load in an image rendered as a 32 bit Photoshop file (or tiff, or png, etc...), and I click on the Alpha channel, the "masked" area shows up red. I can play with the color value, and play with the opacity. But after converting the background to a layer, if I set the opacity to 100% - the masked area is black! What I'm trying to do is to load in a rendered image and delete the background. I want to use the Alpha channel like a quick mask - where the background 'disappears.' Loading it as a selection isn't good enough because sometimes my images have very fine edges (hair) or semi-transparancy (glass). Am I missing a step? Or is my understanding of how selections work a bit lacking? Thanks!

AHHH!! Finally, the answer that no one else could provide! My alphas always showed up as red, and I could never figure out why! I played with the controls, but obviously didn't know what I was looking at. I can't do anything until I finish work today, but I can't wait to get home. Thanks so much!