TGA images - Alpha channel

[Swaffy]

(I am using Photoshop CS5.)

I hate TGA images for one reason: their alpha channels. Every time I make a new scope for my gun, I have to manually "draw" the alpha channel to fit the actual image.

For example:



The Alpha channel is from my old scope. The normal channel is what I want the Alpha channel to look like. Is there an easier way to getting these Alpha channels instead of manually drawing them? I hate using the selection tools because they cause harsh edges, and as you see this scope has a "lens glare" in it along with a smooth edge around the side of the scope.

[Senshi]

For Photoshop:
Use selection tools (magic wand or Select by color in the Selection menu), then use Selection->"Feather...". Feather smoothes the edges of the selection over the width you specify. Feather over 3px means the 3px around the edge are "smoothly" selected, fading from transparent to full opacity. As well as you can paint with low opacity, you can have semi-transparent selections.

That's the way I usually approach these things. A Feather of 3-5 px usually is more than sufficient to smooth it out as required, depending on image size, obviously.

If you have - as in your case - a large low "glow" around the object, I suggest using the "Select by Color" tool (sorry, don't know the correct term. It's in the "select" top menu I think). This tool selects areas by colors, with the additional unique quality of also selecting "smoothly". E.g. if you select full black, the tool will select full black pixels with 100% opacity, but 20% black pixels (greyish ones) with 80% opacity. If you use a unique masking color for the areals you want to be transparent (=Neon green?), you can create fluent transparencies very easily this way. Just select and hit "delete".

[Swaffy]

Thank you. Here's the outcome of what I did:

[fo0k]

tidy stuff swaf.