Doug Kerr
Well-known member
This issue was raised as an incidental at the end of a longer post, but I thought I would set it out where it might get noticed!
I have some TIFF files that were written by a non-Photoshop image editor (Picture Publisher 10). Because I didn't know enough about this, they were saved including the mask channel. Its default state is all opaque. (You would think I would notice that when editing the image, but in fact if there is no selection made, the mask channel is considered "inactive", so all operations affect the entire image just as if the mask channel were all transparent.)
When I load these files into Photoshop, no image appears. Evidently, the "mask channel everywhere opaque" suppresses all the pixels (not really a surprise).
I would like to be able, in Photoshop, to modify the mask channel (to "all transparent") or delete it, so the image can be seen.
We might think that the mask channel would appear in the list of channels, but it doesn't. It doesn't appear as a layer mask on the layers panel for the image layer either.
Does anyone know how I might be able to work that mask layer in Photoshop?
************
Incidentally, yes, I can load these back into Picture Publisher and either:
• Make the mask channel all transparent, or
• Save the file without the mask channel (an option in the Options dialog for the Save As TIFF dialog).
But I'm baffled by not being able to deal with this in Photoshop.
Thanks.
Best regards,
Doug
I have some TIFF files that were written by a non-Photoshop image editor (Picture Publisher 10). Because I didn't know enough about this, they were saved including the mask channel. Its default state is all opaque. (You would think I would notice that when editing the image, but in fact if there is no selection made, the mask channel is considered "inactive", so all operations affect the entire image just as if the mask channel were all transparent.)
When I load these files into Photoshop, no image appears. Evidently, the "mask channel everywhere opaque" suppresses all the pixels (not really a surprise).
I would like to be able, in Photoshop, to modify the mask channel (to "all transparent") or delete it, so the image can be seen.
We might think that the mask channel would appear in the list of channels, but it doesn't. It doesn't appear as a layer mask on the layers panel for the image layer either.
Does anyone know how I might be able to work that mask layer in Photoshop?
************
Incidentally, yes, I can load these back into Picture Publisher and either:
• Make the mask channel all transparent, or
• Save the file without the mask channel (an option in the Options dialog for the Save As TIFF dialog).
But I'm baffled by not being able to deal with this in Photoshop.
Thanks.
Best regards,
Doug