i just tried saving a render in png format on my pc. when i tried opening the file in fireworks (and then again in photoshop) i only got the alpha channel for the render. what am i doing wrong?

Give a few more details. What version of Poser and what was in the scene?

it's p5 (altho' i had similar problems in p4pro). just a figure and a floor prop. when i rendered it, it looked fine, so i saved it as a png. i then opened it in fireworks and it showed looking like the alpha channel -- black background and a transparent space where the figure and floor should be. opening it in photoshop gave the same results. the rgb channels in p-shop all showed the same transparent spot, so it's not like i was displaying it improperly. any ideas?

Hmm I don't have that problem with Photopaint 8. What happens when you render to TIF?

It sounds like the inverted alpha channel problem has struck you. It has existed in Poser 4, Pro Pack and still exists for me in Poser 5. Tif, psd and png are all effected in my case. Not everyone has this problem with the alpha channels in Poser 5 but I think it was a pretty wide spread problem in Poser 4. I haven't had it in a single export or saved image but every animation frame saved as an image series has an inverted alpha channel in all three alpha supporting still formats. Since some apps like throw out the information in the alpha channel as being transparency, tossing the alpha channel out after loading the "transparency", so you can't invert the alpha after loading a png, it is best to use psd or tif.

You know, PNG really isnt a good file format choice for saving your rendered images and textures in. TIFF is still the best choice for several reasons. PNG was created to address specific issues when using GIF and JPG images on the web, and was never really intended for use outside the web. And frankly, it's not widely supported on the web yet either! Here is something I wrote up on this a while back for someone else (You can guess who if you like). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First off, while PNG files do of course look better than a jpg they will never be as small and file sizes balloon up very quickly at a ratio of approximately 5:1 larger in most cases. This is going to dramatically reduce the amount of available space on your CD's. Second, not all PNG implementations are created equal. Photoshop is well known to be the very worst use of the PNG format in a software tool, and I suspect most everyone contributing uses Photoshop. Judicious use of settings and the use of another software tool for image conversions can greatly reduce the file size of your PNGs. Here is an example from one image of some Yellow Canvas at only 512 X 512: FROM PHOTOSHOP 7 Canvas.tif - 800kb Canvas.png - 996kb Canvas.png with interlacing - 1,004kb We can see right away that PNG files saved from Photoshop are actually noticeably larger than TIF files on the average, and in no case should interlacing ever be used, especially since this is a feature intended for web needs. But using Imageready produces better results: FROM IMAGEREADY 7 Canvas.png - 664k Dont ask me why Photoshop 7 saves the same image with 332 extra unneeded kb! Photoshop 6 often does a worse job of compression than version 7 wil. Even better yet is the use of a non-adobe program. FROM GRAPHIC CONVERTER Canvas.png - 608kb Anyhow, just some examples that might be useful for you. PNG is really only useful when used correctly and unfortunately not all software tools implement it nor do users understand how or when to save images using the various bit depth options of the PNG format. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are also other issues, the most common being related to what you mentioned above. Often the background color will be saved as an alpha channel and show up as white in other programs. This is not at all a good thing! ; ) Best of luck.

Let's not overcomplicate this. Poser sometimes exports PNG with a reversed alpha channel. Period. I use the PNG format a lot. 24-bit. If the alpha channel is reversed (which I can tell from thumbnail view in XP) I just open it in Photopaint and invert the mask and resave. No problem. Not all methods of saving PNG from Poser invert the alpha. Depends on if it is (1)animation frame (2)export or (3)saving the image with the pz3. Nothing wrong with using the PNG format. PS I love posting to threads that are a day old here. Nobody will ever see it. LOL

I saw it! ; ) Sure, nothing at all wrong, it's just a waste of disk space.

LOL Wasted disk space? But so is TIf out of Poser..it doesn't use compression at all. PNG out of Poser is smaller than TIF. In either case (png or tif) out of Poser you need to convert to something else or apply compression (tif) in your image editor if you want to save disk space. Your assessment of PNG compression is correct. Not disagreeing with you. But as I said exporting PNG out Poser wastes less space than exporting TIF. But none of that changes the fact that there's a bug. :(

Well, I've had the inverted alpha in saved pngs, tifs and psd files with pz3 and animation frames both now, so Poser 5 has 2 out of 3 of the same old Poser 4 and ProPack glitches. I'm betting it has all 3, but like Poser 4, it was much rarer when exporting images.

BTW, I use pngs most of the time because the format is lossless with good compression that doesn't require a fee to use when you create images. Most anyone with a modern PC can view them no matter whether they have graphics software or not because most come with Windows and IE 4, 5.x or 6, all of which can view pngs. The fact that one can view them on the web, share them on a cd and expect most anyone can view them, and they are often smaller than a zipped uncompressed bitmap file (another well supported format in Windows) makes them a good choice. The alpha channel is a bonus when software supports it properly. Newer software has been disposing of the alpha channel and opening the images with transparent backgrounds. Perhaps you can open the image in an older app and invert the alpha but I can't do it in PSP 7.04 and I hear that Photoshop 7 can't do it either with a png that has an inverted alpha because it tosses out the alpha channel data upon loading so there is no alpha channel to invert. (not verified)

Yeah, you're hosed in PS7 if the alpha channel is reversed. Sheeeeesh. What was Adobe thinking? Photopaint 11 saves the mask in the alpha channel so you can reverse it. Don't use PSP.

I mean I don't use PSP. LOL That didn't sound right.

so.... lesson of the day: use TIF or PSD instead, right? i think PSD renders work OK on my machine. i'll try TIF's for now. thanks all!