Alpha Control

[Alejandro Martinez]

(Reviving this mega-old thread)

It is just impossible, let alone communicate the problem :(…
For example, suppose you use a soft brush with white color, put some soft spots on the screen… but then later you want to boost it or contrast it with a “Levels…” adjustment layer (with ctrl+alt+g, so it only modifies the said layer with the soft spots).
It will do NOTHING because for the the layer it is modifying is fully white, the histogram only has one spike at the white section of the spectrum.
OF COURSE there is an alpha channel embedded in that layer, the layer is not 100% white, it’s a bit transparent at some places and no, it won’t appear ever on the Alpha Channel (at the Channels section).

After effects solves this by allowing a “Levels Adjusment” selector of what to modify (R,G,B, RGB, Alpha, etc).

Has anybody found a way around this? the solution is always about duplicating – merging, putting a black background – merging – adjusting that – using the result as a mask (!). What about modifying a bit once again? Well, repeat all that until the layer and colors and banding just makes it useless.

(Rant over, sorry for that)