Not every file type can support an alpha channel. Black is fully invisible, White is fully opaque. Any values in-between are some amount of semi-transparency. So a completely white pixel would be opaque whereas a completely black pixel would be invisible. The alpha channel, when viewed by itself, looks just like the R, G, & B channels, except that the brightness of each pixel determines just how transparent or opaque that part of the image should be. “ We called it that because of the classic linear interpolation formula α A + ( 1 − α ) B that uses the Greek letter α (alpha) to control the amount of interpolation between, in this case, two images A and B." If you ever wondered why it’s called ‘alpha’, it’s been explained by Alvy Ray Smith, cofounder of Lucasfilm’s Computer Division and Pixar who was one of its inventors: This is where a fourth channel comes into play: The alpha channel subtractive color the point is that those three color channels can do quite a bit, but they contain absolutely no information about transparency. I’m not going to get deep into the topic of additive vs. Those three basic hues, with all their possible values (aka, brightness) and saturation (aka ‘how much color’) values, can create around 16 million colors when combined in different amounts. Those three channels are Red, Green, and Blue. (shhh… I won’t tell anyone you don’t know.)Ĭolor images (on a computer–not print, that’s a different topic, although not too different.) typically contain three layers of information, often referred to as ‘channels’. Here’s a quick overview of some fundamentals in case you never learned anything about it. The good news is that they all refer to the same exact thing.
The terms ‘Alpha Channel’, ‘Image Alpha’, or just ‘Alpha’ are commonly used when talking about transparency. So buckle up and hopefully this will make things ansparent.
IMAGE CLEANER MOZILLA HOW TO
In order to know how to fix common problems with transparency, it helps to first understand the different types of transparency in computer graphics. Just when you thought you understood how to make cool scenes for Hubs, inevitably you run into a challenge when trying to make something look like glass or otherwise be partially see-through. Transparency can greatly enhance the look of a Hubs scene, but getting it to look right isn't always so clear.