Creating and Using an Alpha Channel as a Clipping Path
Tuesday, 27 July 2010 14:13

The alpha channels today have many purposes when it comes to editing images. This tutorial will help you to create clipping paths for a page layout application using alpha channel. The information in this will contain transparency which will help you to understand how to work with alpha channels better. Some building blocks are made use of which are basically images from the herma photo objects volume colleting II. You can make use of the magic wand tool to make the parts of your image you want to have as transparent. If you want to isolate single block, the Photoshop magnetic lasso tool will also work very nicely.

When you convert your selection to a work path you can make precise fine tuning of the clipping path. Till this point, the alpha channel is made use of in the similar manner as an embedded path. However from this point onwards you move on to create an alpha channel. You should make sure that you save your selection as a new channel. To make a quick save of your selection, find the save selection as a channel that is located towards the bottom of the channels palette.

In the channels roll up save the mask as a new channel button in photo paint. You can try out various clipping paths or archive special effects. For this you can save different channels with several different selections. Do not forget to save the image that you are working on in TIFF format or any other format that you find suitable.

Now you have to make the alpha channel clipping path information to open your image in a page layout application. Turn on the desired alpha channel to show transparency when you place your image in the page layout application. In the same way as you place images with embedded paths, you can place alpha channels as the clipping paths. If the image contains multiple alpha channels then there is an extra step involved. Make use of the drop down box to choose the channel. This drop down box is available in the clipping path option of Adobe Indesign. There are options available in the page layout that will help to fine tune the clipping path using the options available. This is the same as with clipping paths with the embedded paths.

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