Tatom

You've heard, they put it on the invisible roadmap.... I'm sure in the next 20 years it will be implemented with many missing features and terrible UX.

It is not about PSD files.

it is called PS

First of all, thanks dor all of your exports. Unfortunately these solutions are not even close to my expectations from workflow side; Alpha is still visible or per channel view is colored and contains alfa info (or becomes transparent if I switch off alpha); I have to deal something else now, but I try you get back ASAP and make a video about PS and AS comparison; maybe that helps more. I even don't understand logic of the macro/procedural system in AF with 25+ years experience in working and helping developers in 3d field (it is like one of the Iray implementations I saw; I could work instantly with any node based shader editor system like Unity/Unreal/Cycles/Redshift, etc.; but Iray... I gave up understanding the logic inside - also it lacked up to date documentation). So thanks, I will be back.

How I replace the alpha with another?

'I'd also like to chime in on the fact that you do have macro's (as said earlier) in Photo. So if you aren't happy with the workflow of channel packing, why not make a macro that does it for you?' I'm not so deep in AF, but on channel-level operations it didn't allow me to record steps. Generally I very rarely use macros for anything (even in PS); I don't need them. When I do, I use 3rd party stuff for that. 'In regards to everything else that was previously discussed, I've also explained the available options you have for working with multiple channels in Photo (one of my previous posts in here). I'd highly recommend (as I said before) to continue tweaking your current workflow within Photo to best suit you, use the macro system and the available tools they have, as it really is far more superior than Photoshop.' Well, I will see. I still have no idea who could I get back the Affinity example you uploaded from a freshly imported TGA created by someone else. Also it seems that alpha appears on all channels in your example file, I have to guess out how to change that. I also want to check if I link (place without embedding) an image from Affinity Designer as a channel to your file as Roughness (Alpha), will this work or not. There is a lot to discover and I don't like it. After many years any app what changes proven UX methods and forces me to to the same differently is a big 'no go', if from UX aspect it has no reason to do it differently.

I have AO, Roughness, etc. input in greyscale typically, I just want to be able to tweak them quickly and paste them to a channel. I don't know what could go wrong with it in a visible way; but I appreciate if you could give me a hint how to adjust an RGBA TGA file Blue channel only with Brightness/Contrast as easily as in PS. Thx.

And yes, if PS is doing something well, than it must be cloned. Number one UX rule. BTW there are things in AF what are superior compared to PS (like cloning on multiple layers) or the terrible PNG saving speed in PS compared to Export speed in PS (affinity is fast), but what I see is that in almost everything they tried to clone PS (even with PhotoPlus) and failed with a worse solution.

More superior? In what? What is the typical workflow in texture packing? Most of the cases it is used for the very same material (AO/Roughness/Metalness and similars). What editing does it need? Typically nothing, just copy and paste, which is a joke in AF, far-far overcomplicated. Typical adjustment scenario: changing values of a channel manually (like adjusting roughness) if you don't want to edit it in the engine or replace a former channel with another (if you prefer manual packing for control). In PS you could have Layers to store the data (AS also), multiple alphas, too. At the end you just export the visible info. 'you can't hold multiple copies and then paste them individually in Photoshop' You could have multiple alpha channels. What is the sense of having multiple copies in your workflow? When it comes to export it is almost the same like working with Layers.... The 99% of work is a simple Copy/Paste or manual adjusting a single channel (like changing brightness of the Roughness channel - in AF it seems to be global, not a single channel operation). PS is far superior for that.

I meant the possibility of direct interaction with alpha channel (and all channels - including RGB separately) quickly and directly. And PS does a great job with that; you could copy and paste whatever you want to wherever you want into an RGBA image (per channel level). Everything is more complicated than that is a bad implementation of channel/alpha handling. In AP the implementation is a joke. That is why I use PS, waiting for a clever developer hired by Serif.

Used by 3D artists (or should be used). PS was a 2D application, but it handles alphas perfectly almost since it exists. So that is not an excuse for anything. If I had no expertise in a field, I would make a research or I would ask someone who has, not to make bad decisions. Technically it would be pretty easy to make it work with the current - terrible - alpha handling, just some creative mind needed.

Nothing complicated? It was clearly implemented by someone never spent a single minute in the 3D industry. If I as UX expert were hired to implement to worst and least efficient way of channel packing, I would clearly fail compared to the AF 'implementation'. It is a bad joke. But for Crimity: I made a FilterForge filter for texture packing; if you have FF you could download it and prosper. Still not PS (that is why I still have PS, it is faster), but helps you to solve this ridiculously unsolved problem. https://www.filterforge.com/filters/14794.html