When working with the Matte toolset, yes, you can view the alpha channel you are creating independently of the layer itself. Seeing this information in the stark black-and-white display of the alpha channel can make it much easier to see how clean a key is, or how sharp the edges of the matte you are creating will be.
- Alpha channels created using the Matte tools can be viewed directly from within the program, while you are using the Matte tools.
- Alpha channels cannot be viewed directly for effects layers, nor for media layers to which no Matte tools have been applied.
Changing the Channels Display
The
Channels Display Menu is located in the
Toolbar at the top left of the interface.
It consists of four circles, each representing a channel of the layer you are working on, and looks like this:
- The Red, Green, and Blue circles represent the RGB channels containing the color data of the layer.
- The grey circle represents the Alpha channel containing the transparency data created by the Matte tools.
- Click the Channels Display menu to open it.
- Select Alpha channel only.
- The transparency information from your channel will now be displayed in greyscale on the canvas, with black representing transparent ares of the layer, and white representing solidly opaque areas.
When using the Alpha Channel only view in correlation with the Difference Key, notice that the Black point and White point controls of that key filter correspond directly to what is included in the Black and White areas of the alpha channel.
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