Simon Edmondson 37 Posted May 24, 2019 As mentioned elsewhere, have been having a lot of tech troubles recently, had thought they were behind me now and to get on with something new(ish) but have hit a problem with alpha channels in TGA files. First a bit of background. I'm working in V18 within OSX 10:8.5. on a Mac mini, I7, 2.3ghz with 4Gb of Ram. Just rendered two scenes to TGA with the figure set against an empty background ( ready for compositing later ). All was well until I opened them in Photoshop, to find that the background had rendered as black rather than transparent. When selecting the background and deleting it, the Alpha transparency is there but, ideally, don't wish to do that for 1000+ frames. Is there a setting I could easily have missed that might cause this problem ? Thank you for listening simon ps Initially the files were rendered to png's but, V18, OSX 10:8.5, produced incorrectly parsed files. Although they looked correctly rendered when they were going through, when opened afterwards in PS The files were a corrupted incoherent jumble of pixels and PS flagged the message, "cannot open the file because it is incorrectly parsed.' This problem had occured before but, rendering on a different machine/OSX solved it. Unfortunately that option is no longer available due to the recent troubles. Any suggestions as to how it might be possible to fix this would be very welcome. The prospect of manually removing 1000+ frames backgrounds is not a happy one! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robcat2075 310 Posted May 24, 2019 Could you send me one of the unedited TGAs? Transparency in PNG and TGA appear differently in Photoshop. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Simon Edmondson 37 Posted May 24, 2019 Robert Thank you for your reply and offer of help. I'll send a copy of the files tomorrow if thats OK?. I've found a work around in Photoshop using Droplets to do the grunt work. Its getting late here and the the land of nod beckons. regards simon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robcat2075 310 Posted May 24, 2019 As soon as you can! It's just one TGA. Why wait? Just post it here. In a TGA there is no such thing as a transparent background. There will always be some value in the RGB channels (probably 0,0,0). The alpha channel will male it transparent in the video editing/compositing program you are using. Why bring it into Photoshop at all? If you bring this to Live Answer Time tomorrow we could make sure we are talking about the same thing and solve this in five minutes. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Simon Edmondson 37 Posted May 25, 2019 Robert Apologies for delay, I have a large render going through of the full scene, taking 18mins per frame.Rendering at UHD because I want the larger file siz to work on afterwards. Here are the files and a screenshot of the settings used in the render options. as you can see, the tga file is viewable but, the same frame rendered as a png file, is scrambled. Both file formats were visible when viewed in the render window in AM as the render went through, but Photoshop could not read the png file when I tried to use that to view it.. Thank you for your help. regards simon TLC S2 0000.tga Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robcat2075 310 Posted May 25, 2019 The TGA has a proper alpha channel. When i put it over another image in a compositing app, it appears to appropriately mask the black background. Tell me more about why you are putting these in Photoshop, which is not a video compositing app. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robcat2075 310 Posted May 25, 2019 If you want to come by Live Answer Time in a coup[e hours this would be interesting to look at. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Simon Edmondson 37 Posted May 25, 2019 Robert. Thank you for your help. Pardon me, I missed the invite to live answers, I was working on the short its for. I tried it in Photoshop because, when I opened the sequence in TVpaint, which does use alpha channels to layer composits, it appeared to be black and not transparent. Will try it in After Effects tomorrow to see how that gets on with it? Thank you. regrds simon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robcat2075 310 Posted May 30, 2019 Since your TGA works correctly for me I will guess that your After Effects has "Ignore alpha" set as a default. I would check that immediately. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Simon Edmondson 37 Posted May 31, 2019 Thank you Robert. I shall check that after having a large cup of tea. regards simon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
