AP does not show transparency loading transparent tiff

[Michael Allman]

Hello,

When I load the attached tiff into macOS Preview or Photoshop, I see a transparent background. When I load it in AP it shows solid black. How do I get it to show the transparency? (Or, why doesn't it show transparency in the first place?)

I'm using AP 2.1.0 on macOS.

Thank you very much.

Michael 

MetalPaint.tiff

[dominik]

5 hours ago, Michael Allman said:

When I load it in AP it shows solid black. How do I get it to show the transparency? (Or, why doesn't it show transparency in the first place?)

Hello @Michael Allman,

just a guess: make sure in the document properties (setup) under color that 'transparent background' is checked.

d.

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, dominik said:

just a guess: make sure in the document properties (setup) under color that 'transparent background' is checked.

For Photo, that's a setting under the Document menu.

[Old Bruce]

This is a new one to me, the ColorSync Profile.

[walt.farrell]

The Channel panel in Photo 2 shows that there is an Unassociated Alpha channel:

Clicking on it turns the all-black image into this:

and also creates this in the Channels panel:

I'm not sure if that's expected behavior.

Photo V1 does not see the Unassociated Alpha channel.

I mention this because I think that there were enhancements in V2 for handling unassociated alpha channels, and there have been other discussins (I think in both versions) about them. This one is, I think, interesting, and the post at the end of it may show a workaround (but I cannot get it to work, and it was about 2.0 not 2.1):

 

 

 

[lepr]

29 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

The Channel panel in Photo 2 shows that there is an Unassociated Alpha channel:

Good catch.

Clicking on that thumbnail produces a visualisation of the channel as a greyscale image (similar to opt/alt-clicking a Mask's thumbnail in Layers panel).

To bake the unassociated alpha into the alpha of 'Background' layer:

1. select 'Background' in Layers panel
2. right-click Unassociated Alpha thumbnail in Channels panel and select 'Load To background Alpha'.

The Unassociated Alpha channel will need to be deleted if you want to directly re-save to TIFF rather than export to a new TIFF, otherwise Affinity will refuse to save because there is more than just a Pixel object in the document.

 

29 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Photo V1 does not see the Unassociated Alpha channel.

v1 automatically puts these alpha values into the Pixel object named 'Background' that it creates when opening the TIFF instead of the current v2 method of creating an opaque Pixel object and separate Channel object.

[Michael Allman]

Thank you everyone. I think this falls under the rubric of "bug or feature"...  Following @lacerto's video instructions as referenced by @walt.farrell displays the image correctly (which should be black-on-transparent).

Personally, I think this is a bug. If I open an image which is black-on-transparent, I shouldn't be faced with an all-black image, even if the alpha channel is still available somewhere. The default behavior should show black-on-checkerboard, IMHO, or at least something that contrasts with black (as is the case with the Preview app).

This is consistent with Photoshop and Pixelmator.

[Michael Allman]

FYI, I've reported this as a bug in the bug forum.

 

[Hangman]

Hi @Michael Allman,

I don't believe this is a bug as you can easily achieve what you're looking to achieve... See the update to your post here...

[lepr]

23 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I don't believe this is a bug as you can easily achieve what you're looking to achieve... See the update to your post here...

I dare say the v2 behaviour is a deliberate change by the developers in response to some customer request, but v1 made the workflow infinitely easier for the user who does not want the alpha to be separated to a Channel object: simply open the TIFF.

For users who open many TIFFs with transparency every day, the v2 behaviour will be welcome for some, but a royal pain in the ass for others, depending on how they intend to work with the opened file. There should be an option for the user to choose how TIFFs gets opened.