I've been using Corel Paintshop Pro for years because it was less expensive than Photoshop, but when the Photoshop CS4 update came out I decided to splurge and go for the "Industry Standard." So far I'm finding the programs fairly similar, but I've run into the first issue I can't seem to solve on my own.
In PSP, when I open an image that already contains transparency information (like a .png or .tga with an Alpha Channel) the image will be loaded with full opacity until I manually load the Alpha Channel. This allows me to edit the "full" image, and change which areas of the image are masked out by the Alpha Channel. Its very useful for editing transparent textures from video games.
So, in Photoshop, I've loaded a texture from a video game that has transparency. The image was a .png image, and Photoshop has already applied the transparency to it. I can load the same image in PSP and edit the color channel and alpha channel individually, which is what I'll do for now. However for future reference, what do I need to do to load the currently applied Alpha Channel of an image in Photoshop, so that I can modify the "original?"
(Also: in PSP, I can right click with the eraser tool and it will increase the opacity of an image. I tried alt + clicking in Photoshop since that's how the other tools work, but it seems like I can still only decrease the opacity - what am I doing wrong?)
In PSP, when I open an image that already contains transparency information (like a .png or .tga with an Alpha Channel) the image will be loaded with full opacity until I manually load the Alpha Channel. This allows me to edit the "full" image, and change which areas of the image are masked out by the Alpha Channel. Its very useful for editing transparent textures from video games.
So, in Photoshop, I've loaded a texture from a video game that has transparency. The image was a .png image, and Photoshop has already applied the transparency to it. I can load the same image in PSP and edit the color channel and alpha channel individually, which is what I'll do for now. However for future reference, what do I need to do to load the currently applied Alpha Channel of an image in Photoshop, so that I can modify the "original?"
(Also: in PSP, I can right click with the eraser tool and it will increase the opacity of an image. I tried alt + clicking in Photoshop since that's how the other tools work, but it seems like I can still only decrease the opacity - what am I doing wrong?)