TGA images in Photoshop CS - not transparent

Thursday, January 6, 2005 by retiredmaster | Discussion: OS Customization

When I'm saving a PSD image as a TGA (targa) format file from Photoshop CS I'm losing transparency. I'm obviously doing something dumb... any ideas what it might be? (done this a thousand times in PS7 - is there a setting in CS I didn't set?)
16 Reply 19 Referrals
PixelPirate
Reply #1 Thursday, January 6, 2005 11:14 AM
It's all in the alpha channel you define. White areas = visible, black areas = invisible. Simple as that.

retiredmaster
Reply #2 Thursday, January 6, 2005 11:57 AM
Hmm - I'm confused. Saving my psd file from PS7 in 32bit TGA format results in an image of buttons with transparency. Doing exactly the same thing, using the same psd file from CS results in buttons with a white background.

I'm not doing anything to the alpha channel at all.

PixelPirate
Reply #3 Thursday, January 6, 2005 12:45 PM
Oh like that... Well PS flattens the image, so it will automatically get a white background. TGA's can't be transparent the same way as a PNG can. It's transparency is defined in the alpha channel. I suspect you're gonna use a tga for a skin, make sure you enable Transparency and Translucency for your image and watch the result in SkinStudio.

Koasati
Reply #4 Thursday, January 6, 2005 3:37 PM
If I remember correctly, PhotoshopCS doesn't do TGA very well, and this was the exact reason Adam added the ability to convert PNG/TGA in SkinStudio.

PixelPirate
Reply #5 Thursday, January 6, 2005 3:50 PM
Might be, I've seen other complain about tga's in CS. However I've never had any problems doing it manually

Scarebear
Reply #6 Thursday, January 6, 2005 4:11 PM
I think Koasati is right. PS CS doesn't do TGA very well. I've experienced the same problem as Essorant where old files that worked in PS7 now don't get transparency when saving as TGA in CS. I've tried playing with the alpha channels with no luck. I now save as PNG and then let SkinStudio convert them to TGA for me.

This however won't help Essorant as he still codes by hand if I remember correctly.

PixelPirate
Reply #7 Thursday, January 6, 2005 4:43 PM
I think that's weird since I have no problem. I create the image from scratch, then do the alpha channel last (remember you can only have 1 alpha channel in a tga, if you have more it won't work). Then I save as 32 bit tga, and it works like it should in SS.

Scarebear
Reply #8 Thursday, January 6, 2005 6:04 PM
You have the RGB, Red, Green, Blue channel layers PLUS Alpha that you created? I'm sure I tried that once with no luck. But I'm far from an expert when it comes to these things

voo
Reply #9 Thursday, January 6, 2005 7:02 PM
aye there it is http://adam.wincustomize.com/articles.aspx?p=5&view=1&sort=1&direction=0&SID=59&UID=0
It seems the adobe forum TGA thread has been deleted due to being so old. Cannot remember what Chris Cox said, something the way users were not interacting with TGA so they felt no need for it and removed the transparency...

You might also encounter this problem with CS should anyone ask, seems a known problem on several other forums.
Rehash on the "tool stops responding" problem in CS

Login as Guest if it asks.

Adam Najmanowicz
Reply #10 Thursday, January 6, 2005 7:20 PM
Yup, we've dealt with the problem right after PS CS went out. it's done completely automatically, and user may not even realize it in most times and most certainly does not have to care. AFAIK the translucancy in PS CS is just gone. also PSP does not have it enabled by default. and you have to perform some magic to enable it.

Scarebear
Reply #11 Thursday, January 6, 2005 8:38 PM
Thanks for the link to the other article. Some good advice there that I might give a go.

retiredmaster
Reply #12 Friday, January 7, 2005 4:48 AM
Ok - thanks for that info everyone. I'm glad I didn't uninstall PS7. Looks like I'll be going back to that for my TGAs. And quite right Scarebear - I STILL don't use SS. Sorreee! I know, I am just a naughty boy. Obviously I might start using it if that's the only way to make transparent TGAs - unless the WB developers might like to add PNG support to WindowBlinds?

In fact, while we're on the subject, has anyone a good reason to swap to CS from 7? (other than it's just "the latest version") What new stuff does it provide to us skinning types?

PixelPirate
Reply #13 Friday, January 7, 2005 5:44 AM
I believe CS added nested layers, folders with folders of layers in them. Great for the layout process of a skin. Other new things that I benefit from is the healing brush and patch tool, really awesome for photo retouch that I do a lot of at work. Also Adjustments -> shadow/highlight (RGB) can really make a bad photo much easier to work with.

Check out danillo's comment #5 to this article http://adam.wincustomize.com/articles.aspx?aid=2574&SID=59

I thought that might be possible, just like you can put the 3D Transform plugin from PS7 in the PS CS plugins folder.

retiredmaster
Reply #14 Friday, January 7, 2005 6:42 AM
Oh well done danillo! That works! Thank goodness for that.

And thank you PixelPirate for that. It should be brought to everyone's attention!


Erik Holmer
Reply #15 Friday, January 7, 2005 6:59 AM
So, it actually works putting the TGA-plugin from 7.0 into CS? And in that case, could somebody please upload the "Targa.8BI" -file?

voo
Reply #16 Friday, January 7, 2005 12:22 PM
Copying the plugin from 7 to CS never worked for me, or what it might appear is it'll only work because he still has 7 installed although that still did not work for me. And it ended up screwing up TGA for both 7 and CS for my part.

Though to be honest its so nice that SkinStudio converts its to TGA, easier and quicker. No way could I go back to 7 and lose the nested layer set feature. It's just too good!

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