Black to transparent instead of black and white

BP
Posted By
Brian_Peart
Feb 17, 2004
Views
262
Replies
5
Status
Closed
This is probably easy, but I haven’t worked it out very well – is it possible to convert a grayscale B/W photo to black and transparent, with various degrees of transparency depending on the greyness of the photo? In other words, where the photo is black, it’s not transparent, but where it is white it is 100% transparent with varying ‘shades’ of transparency in between?

Thanks a lot!

Brian
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black black and white transparency white

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JM
John_Mensinger
Feb 17, 2004
Depending on the underlying image, (that you want to show through the transparency), try changing the blend mode of your grayscale layer to Multiply or Darken.
MV
Mathias_Vejerslev
Feb 17, 2004
You could also try something like this:
Ctrl-click the composite channel
Delete.

Or you could even use Advanced Layer Blending in the Layer Styles dialog. Or blend modes as John suggests.

Mathias
JS
John_Slate
Feb 17, 2004
….or get the grayscale into an alpha channel, load it as a selection, then on a new layer, fill with black.
BP
Brian_Peart
Feb 18, 2004
Wonderful! Thanks everyone, I’ll try all the above!

Brian
FN
Fred_Nirque
Feb 18, 2004
…….or use a 3rd party white dropout filter such as "Eliminate White" (Google for it) with the B&W image on the top layer any image you want to show through on the underlying layer…….

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