[rivoli]

maybe I'm not getting what you mean, but it is antialiased (you can tell that by looking at the different shades of grey pixels which make up the sphere's contour), what you see it's just a 200% or more blowup of mike's rendering.

[hyltom]

It seems to me that the working one is the one that is aliased (no gradient). The others produce some interference between the background and the object.

Edit: maybe i misunderstood, so what is the aliased picture? Is it an alpha channel or an aliased rendering? whatt ever is it, how can i get such output?

[rivoli]

nope, the alpha channel it's exactly the same in both cases. what changes it's the rgb channel, in one case it's premultiplied and in the other one it's not.
anyway, any compositing app will correctly deal with multiplied and non multiplied images (ps it's not among them unfortunately), giving always the correct result.

[rivoli]

whatt ever is it, how can i get such output?

I guess you have to go to the wishlist section, and ask the guys over in madrid to add the option for choosing between premultiplied and straight alpha images.

[hyltom]

Ok, i think i understand now...but if i use after effect instead of PS, can i get the correct result with what maxwell output?

[rivoli]

Ok, i think i understand now...but if i use after effect instead of PS, can i get the correct result with what maxwell output?

yep, totally

[hyltom]

Thanks Rivoli, your answers was very helpfull. Now i have to save a lot of money .

[rivoli]

actually you can get away with ps and alphas as well. it may get a bit of working around but it can be done. I'll try to post something later, at the moment the pc it's a bit busy.

[def4d]

Very interesting, thanks for the explanations all!
As Hyltom, im a bit confused cause i have anti-aliased alpha too...

[tom]

Hyltom and def4d, in Mike's example there's no aliased alpha. That aliased image is an oversprayed beauty pass talking about another technique. Maxwell's method is pre-multiplied. So, no matter which application you use, you need to make straight alpha removal and then black matte removal in order to have it perfect.

[Daniel Hruby]

Help! I cannot get the alpha to paste into the mask layer. It just pastes to a new layer. Not into a linked mask layer. I find no way to open the mask layer like the tutorial video shows! Can anyone help me quickly!!!

[lebbeus]

Daniel--

Have you tried Tom's action? You need both images open for the action to work properly

[Bubbaloo]

Alt-click the mask part of the layer to make it active, then paste.