$selfillum without photoshop?

[BlackholeAL]

Thank you, it's all working now.

[Ricotez]

Added. But people should really just use Photoshop, you'll need to get it for some more advanced things anyway.

Yeah, but not all of us have seven hundred dollars to drop on a piece of software.

Older versions of Photoshop aren't all that expensive. I got a version of Photoshop with my Bamboo tablet, Elements 6.

[HMW]

Added. But people should really just use Photoshop, you'll need to get it for some more advanced things anyway.

Yeah, but not all of us have seven hundred dollars to drop on a piece of software.

I generally get by pretty well with the open-source stuff, but Photoshop surely is a lot nicer than any other photo editing program I know of, so I'm sometimes tempted to buy it.

Does anyone know what the difference is exactly between the full Photoshop and Elements? Adobe's site isn't terribly informative.

[Smasher 006]

Added. But people should really just use Photoshop, you'll need to get it for some more advanced things anyway.

Yeah, but not all of us have seven hundred dollars to drop on a piece of software.

I generally get by pretty well with the open-source stuff, but Photoshop surely is a lot nicer than any other photo editing program I know of, so I'm sometimes tempted to buy it.

Does anyone know what the difference is exactly between the full Photoshop and Elements? Adobe's site isn't terribly informative.

Element doesn't have as many effects and doesn't support alpha channels that well.

[omnicoder]

Elements doesn't support Alpha channel at all as far as I can tell.

[HMW]

Element doesn't have as many effects and doesn't support alpha channels that well.

Elements doesn't support Alpha channel at all as far as I can tell.

Ah. That'd put Elements out of the picture then, as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for the answer!

[Smasher 006]

Elements doesn't support Alpha channel at all as far as I can tell.

It supports it for PNG's but that's about it.

[omnicoder]

Elements doesn't support Alpha channel at all as far as I can tell.

It supports it for PNG's but that's about it.

There's a big difference between the A value of the ARGB and an Alpha mask. It supports transparency but not the alpha channel/alpha mask.

[Thor]

Here's another way to do it, in addition to HMW's procedure:

1. In the layers tab, right click on your picture and select 'Add Layer Mask' or in the layers menu (Layers > Mask > Add Layer Mask). You'll probably want to select white for this, so you can see everything.
2. Use black on any parts you don't want to glow.
3. Apply the mask by right clicking on the picture in the Layers tab and selecting 'Apply Layer Mask', or in the layers menu (Layers > Mask > Apply Layer Mask). Now just save it and you should be all set.

[HMW]

Here's another way to do it, in addition to HMW's procedure:

1. In the layers tab, right click on your picture and select 'Add Layer Mask' or in the layers menu (Layers > Mask > Add Layer Mask). You'll probably want to select white for this, so you can see everything.
2. Use black on any parts you don't want to glow.
3. Apply the mask by right clicking on the picture in the Layers tab and selecting 'Apply Layer Mask', or in the layers menu (Layers > Mask > Apply Layer Mask). Now just save it and you should be all set.

Yes, that should also work, as long as you make sure to always keep a copy of your image without the mask applied. When you load a TGA back into the GIMP, it will destroy the colour information of the areas it thinks are fully transparent (alpha = 0), so I would recommend to keep the alpha separate from the colour in the image you use for editing and only apply it right before you export to TGA.
Whether you use a layer mask or a separate grey-scale layer for this is up to you.