[Quejet]

Can I suggest you simply turn the quality down for that layer?

[Quejet]

because i have no choice! This is the format the media I’m using outputs in, i can’t convert it. But more importantly, its not about controlling the alpha of the output! Its about controlling the alpha of the input. I need that control… badly. I can’t simply tell where I’m getting my media from to export in a different format. It’s just not possible!

I know what the solution to my question is likely to be some kind of third party plugin that allows me to have more control over the transparency of my layers. This is what I’m asking for.
Really it’s not stubbornness. It’s necessity.

[Quejet]

Yah it sounds like you have a keying nightmare there but don’t underestimate the power of the keying tools you have at your disposal currently.

I also don’t believe any keyer no matter what the price is, is capable of doing a perfect key like that. More then likely, your gonna be doing some fairly tight rotoscoping and and then manually keying the colors out that you don’t want (linear key maybe?) THEN going in and defining the interior edges of the key so that you don’t lose data in the centre (MORE rotoscoping), then plenty of spill suppressor with a feathered mask on an adjustment layer to get the the rest of the background out of her hair.

Total training, pro series, has some rundowns on keying as well. Though i’m sure you know your stuff there.

Also I’m fairly sure you can do that without the use of a 1.5K plugin

I think what in the end what it comes down to is if your footage can even realistically be considered for keying. Some things just wont come out well, the data isn’t there.

[Quejet]

but you can’t just think of them in 2d space because their 3d space transformations. They scope extends beyond just finding out where a point in 3d space lays on a the composition window Lord Scales. This is the information I’m after, workshops or something to overview these problems and to become more proficient in using them.

[Quejet]

wuh HUH?

… ooo k…

anyway I’ve being to motion script and I’ve read through everything, its still not very clear because he just went over from comp and to comp, those are fairly strait forward, check adobe help on reference for layer space transformations, theres alot more to cover, and they’re not well documented either.

[Quejet]

Wait hang on, I’d like to tag on one last image just to make sure everything crystal clear. Here is the same image in photoshop, with 3 layers using the very same alpha channel, the first layer had the brush strokes, the second layer has a black and a white gradient, and the third has a imported PNG file.

[Quejet]

ugh. I’m doing my very best to communicate the problem. Let me be clear: When i say alpha. I don’t mean go into the channels tab and hit new channel. That channel isn’t ACTUALLY ALPHA!
[Darby Edelen (wuzelwazel)] “Photoshop does not translate alpha channels directly into transparency information as After Effects does.”
See this is where the confusion is coming from. This is the root.
Photoshop DOES! But you have no control over it.

I don’t think you believe me though, so I direct you to this wiki page that explains the alpha channel and its use in images in more detail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGBA_color_space
Also: Alpha compositing:
alpha compositing is the process of combining an image with a background to create the appearance of partial transparency. It is often useful to render image elements in separate passes, and then combine the resulting multiple 2D images into a single, final image in a process called compositing.
~ wiki

When your clicking the new channel button in the channels tab, your only making a spare channel, which is later interpreted as the alpha channel when you save in some image formats. That’s not actually alpha
What I’m looking for is control over my images alpha, while I’m alpha compositing.

Remember: I’m not opening the images directly. I’m creating a new canvase, and then pasting these images over.
Here is an example of a 24 bit

as you can clearly see, this image has an alpha channel! Your browser (if you have it up to date) Is compositing this image on the background of this website, in this case white, but if you were to load this image into photoshop, you wouldn’t get a white background!

neet huh?

[Quejet]

[Darby Edelen (wuzelwazel)] “What kind of control are you looking for? You can access Alpha Channels in the layers pallete’s “Channels” tab.”

wow you had me worried there. I thought I missed something amazingly obvious.

OK to better explain what I want I feel I should clarify terms (whether these terms are technically right isn’t important, it’s just so were on the same page). I have some 24 bit PNG images. They are in these formats because PNG-24 offers lossless compression with 4 channels. (and i think full 8 bit). The images have RGB channels and an ALPHA channel. (oh these are strait images, not pre-multiplied) Now I could take this image into after effects, and I have several options where I could raise the alpha channels values.

Now what if i import this layer into photoshop. Now i have the image, alpha channel and all in the layer, but what if i want to raise that alpha channel, or make the alpha channel for that layer to be 255 or 0? As it stands the only way I know of modifying this channel in this sense is to duplicate the layer on top of itself, if thats not enough i’ll duplicate several times, merge down, then duplicate several more times.

This is not a good approach by any stretch of the imagination. Ive even seen my color data start to freak out when I’ve done this enough times before. And for 32 bit HDR images on a 2048*2048 canvas? I don’t have NEARLY the processor strength to make that road worth travelling down. As far as I know, photoshop has no native tools to modify the alpha channel of a layer. So are there any plugins or anything I can use to overcome this?

[Quejet]

[yikesmikes] ”
I downloaded it, do you need it posted somewhere?”

could you give us some information on this plugin? it sounds interesting.

[Quejet]

The Cycore effects that came with your after effects installation disk have some additional particle plugins that MAY get the look your going for… But if your in the market for something more specific, then i recommend trapcode particular. You want a more viscous feel to the animation and particular actually has this ability. This is a fully 3d plugin that has the ability to create a four dimensional turbulence field to alter the particles position or even size. This turbulence field, while only affecting the position of the particles (it doesn’t actually alter their velocity so to speak, its not as much of an issue as its sounds.) could be used to give the particles a more viscous feel, then all you would need to do is apply the appropriate filters to get the particles to look good (CC Vector Blur!!!) and pre compose and time remap the effect to get the particles to assemble your logo.

heres an image of me using trapcode to make a particle field around the letter Q:

But particular is a pretty expensive plugin. The demo would be worth trying to see if its right for you. Barring all that, particle playground is an excellent particle simulator. Its not THAT intuitive but its powerful none the less, and some fiddling around with it you may find you get what your looking for.