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transparent background in photoshop changing to white in FCP
I have two .jpeg files. One is a picture of a climbing route. One is a line, that if aligned and overlayed on the picture, shows the route on the rock. the .jpeg of the line is set on a transparent background in photoshop. I drew the line on the picture in photoshop, had it as a different layer, then saved the layers as different files.
I want to be able to have the line be visible at my control in FCP. Mainly, I want to be able to wipe the line in from the bottom while the background of the picture of the climbing route is visible. However, when I import the line into FCP, it changes the transparent background into an all white background. This of course obscures the main photo of the route. Why does it change from a transparent background in photoshop to a white background in FCP? What am I doing wrong? Am I doing anything wrong?
Any suggestions to doing this? Do I need to use another program? Motion, after effects of something? I’d rather not have to learn something else right now, I’m just trying to wrap my brain around FCP.
I’m using FCP 5.1 and Photoshop CS.
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6 Replies
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[Jonathon H] “the .jpeg of the line is set on a transparent background in photoshop.”
No it’s not. If you open the jpeg in PS, you’ll see that it has a white background. jpegs cannot have either transparency or alpha channels.
You need to save your picture in a format that allows transparency, or can have a separate alpha channel to create the transparency. IOW, you should be saving your picture as a .tif, .tga or .png, with an alpha channel.
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog -
You don’t need to save the layers as different files. Simply save your Photoshop document and import that into FCP. Final Cut Pro will import your PSD as a sequence, and in that sequence will be your two layers with their original transparency.
…also, make sure to delete any unnecessary alpha channels in your Photoshop document.
Good luck!
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Similar problem for me, that exporting a tif gets me the same “white” background because the alpha channel doesn’t come along for some reason. I don’t seem to be able to turn it on in the Photoshop export dialogue…
My workaround is to import the Photoshop project into Shake, and export a tif from there… I get the alpha channel, and its even properly identified as “black” in FCP!
So… WTF is going on with export from Photoshop that FCP doesn’t ‘get it’?
JPO
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The alpha channel doesn’t just happen, you have to make it. I’d recommend that you look it up in your PS manual, and you could probably search in this forum or in the Photoshop forum.
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog -
Been down that road… the Photoshop path seems bizzarly complicated, and how did it get to be “transparent” anyway without an alpha channel being resident?
In any event, a one-stop trip to Shake makes it “happen” automatically with no waiting or fiddling around, and it preserves layers, etc., so I’m sticking with it.JPO
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Also…make sure your PS file is in RGB mode and not CMYK (or other) mode. That will affect your transparency.
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