Adobe 13101332 User Guide - Page 281

Adobe Photoshop Help Using Help | Contents | Index Using Channels and Masks Back 281 To create an alpha channel and specify options: 1 Do one of the following: • Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the New Channel button at the bottom of the palette. • Choose New Channel from the Channels palette menu. 2 Type a name for the channel. 3 Select display options for the channel, as described in steps 2 through 4 of the procedure for changing Quick Mask options in "Creating temporary masks in Quick Mask mode (Photoshop)" on page 278. Alpha channel options are identical to Quick Mask options. 4 Click OK. A new channel appears at the bottom of the Channels palette and is the only channel visible in the image window. 5 Click the eye icon next to a color channel or the composite color channel to display the image with a color overlay. 6 Use a painting or editing tool to paint in the image. Paint with black to add to the new channel, paint with white to remove from the new channel, or paint with a lower opacity or a color to add to the new channel with lower opacities. Saving a mask selection You can save any selection as a mask in a new or existing alpha channel. To save a selection to a new channel with default options (Photoshop): 1 Select the area or areas of the image that you want to isolate. 2 Click the Save Selection button at the bottom of the Channels palette. A new channel appears, named according to the sequence in which it was created. To save a selection to a new or existing channel: 1 Select the area or areas of the image that you want to isolate. 2 Choose Select > Save Selection. 3 Do the following in the Save Selection dialog box, and click OK: • (Photoshop) Choose a destination image for the selection in the Document menu. By default, the selection is placed in a channel in your active image. You can choose to save the selection to a channel in another open image with the same pixel dimensions or to a new image. • Choose a destination channel for the selection from the Channel pop-up menu. By default, the selection is saved in a new channel.You can choose to save the selection to any existing channel in the selected image or to a layer mask if the image contains layers. • If you're saving the selection as a new channel, enter a name for the channel in the Name text box. In ImageReady, you can change the default channel name if desired. • If you're saving the selection to an existing channel, select how to combine the selections: Replace Channel to replace the current selection in the channel; Add to Channel to add the selection to the current channel contents; Subtract from Channel to delete Using Help | Contents | Index Back 281