Photoshop needs "Color to Alpha" button

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
October 15, 2020
13 replies
9541 views

I was just chatting with a group of other artists about the need to convert a color into transparency sometimes, and we've all needed such a function, then somebody said that in GIMP there's just a simple button for it, "Color to Alpha." It does exactly what we need and very easily. In Photshop this is possible but very cumbersome, having to use the channels to make a selection, then apply a mask.

Googling leads to 10 year old articles and people recommending plugins. But yeah, I'd just like to suggest this as an official feature request.

You know how in Photoshop you can use Replace Color? And you can pick a color, and vary the fuzziness of the selection, then change the color to something else? It would be just like that I imagine, but instead of changing the color, you increase the opacity of those pixels.

Feature request

Show previous replies

Jeff Arola

Community Expert

Alexander,

Here's an action that works on your particular image and other images that you want to remove the black or white background from.

http://www.ayatoweb.com/download/down04.html

google translated

https://www-ayatoweb-com.translate.goog/download/down04.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_sch=http

The page is in Japanese, however, the action that still seems to work in photoshop 2024 is the

Photoshop Action File for MacOSX・Windows（Photoshop CS5・CS6）that includes an English version

and the action is called Un-Multiply

There is an updated version 2021, but some of the action steps are in Japanese

so the action doesn't work in English photoshop versions.

Anyhow, before running the action Un-Multiply on an image such as yours where you want to remove the white, first make sure the layer is a layer and not a Background layer, Invert the image, run the Un-Multiply action, then invert the image again.

Invert image

run Un-Multiply action

Invert image

Image on black background

final transparent png

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

The result of that Action seems very good, better than my approach actually.

Edit: But their set-up can be recreated with Smart Objects, too; that may not seem like a great improvement over an Action but it would allow for editing the original illustration »on the fly« if necessary.

D Fosse

Community Expert

This is a very sensible request on the face of it. The problem is that Select > Color Range already does it. The output is a selection, not a mask. But all you have to do is click the mask button.

Generally, "new" features that only combine existing ones get low priority. That's just my experience, not my opinion.

In short...well, maybe it might be worth it. Whether it actually happens depends on the marketing value.

dolldivineAuthor

Inspiring

Whoooa, what? I didnt know this tool existed! This is exactly what I needed! This is SO much easier than fiddling with channels and layer masks. Thank you!