Talk:Photoshop: Creating Transparent Icons

Update

This tutorial could use a bit of work. For one thing, you should turn off mip-maps for icons, to avoid the error mentioned in the tutorial; for another, if you do not add the glow (which is not necessary, and can look bad on non-default UIs), you can save the icon as DXT1 ARGB 4 bpp | 1 bit alpha, rather than DXT3, which saves some filesize.

Someone should probably work on that.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 19:28, 25 February 2008 (EST)

Photoshop Plugin Problem?

What's exactly the problem with the photoshop-plugin? So far it worked fine here, just save them as DXT3 without mipmaps?--JOG 10:11, 12 May 2006 (EDT)

I think the problem described is the "too many channels to export" error. This actually seems to mean too many layers, flattening your layers down fixed it for me.—mmmpld 00:38, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

Makes sense, as dds only has one layer...

Thugh, it could have asked if you wanted to flatten the layers before export, or just use the selected layer...

The gimp dds plugin does this.--Stardaemon 07:20, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

It seems the error is about having layers hidden. I'm not sure why it will sometimes work with hidden layers and sometimes not, but showing the hidden layers seems to be enough to prevent the error when it would have otherwise occured.—mmmpld 04:22, 17 May 2006 (EDT)

OK, I just had the "too many channels" error without hidden layers. I had three layers, and the exporter wouldn't work until i flattened down to a single layer.—mmmpld 04:57, 17 May 2006 (EDT)

I have found 2 reasons for the photoshop error "too many channels to export": first, when the background layer is hidden or second, if there is a stored/saved selection. check that background layer is unhidden and look at the channel tab and delete the "selection" channel. this way it works for me, without having to flatten the image.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 12:55, 16 August 2006 (EDT): Why hasn't the article been updated with this information? *shakes head*

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I can't seem to keep the mask layer from merging into the background during the conversion to DDS. Now, knowing how the world works, I probably did something obviously wrong. Is the Alpha Channel the same as a Mask layer, or can it perform the same functions? The Imperial Dragon 16:56, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

If you're masking the background layer then the mask's channel is like an alpha channel for just the background layer—so what you're seeing is what should happen. To create an alpha channel click the 'new' button in the channels pallet.—mmmpld 22:29, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

Uhm, well, there is no Alpha Channel button on this old program. What I've done with the Mask layer is what you describe above, but it keeps getting compressed so that only the front row image shows; the rest is all white. The Imperial Dragon 03:33, 21 June 2006 (EDT)