Saving An Image with Transparency? (Please assist ASAP)

Alissa, the only difference and it appears to be a major one, is that I did mine all through Photoshop. I think you did yours through the stand alone DeNoise AI filter. I took a snip of your photo, created a mask in Photoshop and saved it as a TIFF image. I then pulled it back into Photoshop, and accessed the DeNoise filter from there. In other words I went up to filters, then down to DeNoise AI. Once the image was processed I hit the “Apply” button which took it back into Photoshop, and I saved it as a .TIFF from there.!
I did more work than you need to do. You already have the .TIFF transparency image. Just take it into Photoshop, go to filters, down to DeNoise. Once done hit “Apply” and when you are back in Photoshop, save it as a .TIFF. If you double click on it when you have it on your hard drive you will not see the transparency, it will be solid white background. Only when you pull it back in to Photoshop will you see the transparancy.

I tried, as you did, to do this within the stand-alone version of DeNoise AI, and it does not work there. I’m going to try and let someone know. It seems to be a bug.

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I’m not sure it is a bug. While the TIFF file format supports transparency, not all software supports transparency within TIFFS (obviously Photoshop does, as you’ve discovered). Normally the best way to keep transparency across applications is to use the PNG file format.

Sorry Paul, I Hit the “D” key instead of the “P” in PNG. If DeNoise AI is to be a stand-alone filter which it is, and Topaz also having Mask AI, it seems like it probably should be a feature of them both to handle transparencies. But I agree, my choice of “BUG” was not appropriate.

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@terryleemartin13
@PaulM
@ajp2487

DeNoiseAI does correctly handle transparency, both when it is used as a plugin to a host editor (Affinity Photo in my case) and when it is used as a stand alone.

If the source image has transparency, then when it is opened in DenoiseAI the transparent areas will show in the Navigator panel as a checkerboard pattern. If you have Automatically Update Preview set to No, then initially the transparent area in the main display will be black, but will change to the checkerboard pattern when Update Preview is done.

Once the DenoiseAI process has completed, for the transparency to be carried forward to the output image, it must be saved as either **TIF/TIFF, PNG **, and the transparency in the output image will then show in software that can handle transparency. ie. Photoshop, Affinity Photo etc.

Hi Greyfox, I have no doubts you somehow were able to get DeNoise AI to save a transparency image. What I have a problem with, is that I can’t. Here are snips of the image with the transparency and the second after being pulled into DeNoise AI. Be sure to click on the second image to see the full image including the Denoise settings.

Terry, are you making sure to check “preserve transparency” when saving as a TIFF?

Hi Terry,
Your second screen shot shows that the image in DenoiseAI does not have the checkerboard pattern in either the navigator or the main screen, which leads me to believe that the area around the car is not actually transparent.

First can you confirm - is DeNoiseAI operating as a plugin or free standing.

If freestanding, what format is the image that has been opened in DenoiseAI - is it TIF/TIFF or PNG,

If DenoiseAI is being operated as a plugin did the image as opened in the host editor originally have the transparency, or was the transparency created in the host editor. What if any is the significance of the term “Masked” shown in the title of your screen shot.

The image as opened in DenoiseAI should not have the white background if it has transparency. It should either be checkerboard if the preview has been updated, or black if it hasn’t been updated, so as I see it, the problem is what is being opened in DenoiseAI, not what is being saved from DenoiseAI.

Using a screen capture of the car with a white background I created a tiff file in Affinlty Photo that had a transparent background and saved it. I then opened it in Denoise AI and it kept the transparency. After processing I saved it as a tiff file and brought it back into Affinity Photo and it still had the transparent background.

Hi Greyfox, yes, I was using DeNoiseAI as a stand-alone and working with a TIFF image. I was doing things way too quickly last night when I sent the info to you and sent the wrong snip. When I take the Transparent portion TIFF into DeNoise AI and process the image there I’m able to save it just fine. If I pull the image back into DeNoise AI it will still show the checkerboard pattern. The problem is when you attempt to take that image into Photoshop. It will not be imported with the transparent areas. It imports it as a solid white background.

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Paul, I don’t see “preserve transparency” as an option. Can you tell me where I would find that? I’m sure that is the answer, I just don’t see where it is.

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If you’re doing it in Photoshop it’s one of the options in the same dialogue box as the compression settings.

The problem isn’t with Photoshop though. The transparency is saved if you do the DeNoise AI function in Photoshop. It’s when you are doing it with Stand-Alone DeNoise. You can pull a partial transparency into Stand-Alone DeNoise, process it and save it. If you pull that saved image back into Stand-Alone DeNoise it will still show the transparency. But what I found as the problem is when you attempt to pull that same saved image into Photoshop. You no longer have the transparency portion. The other gentleman responding to this post claims he can do it. I’ve sent him a message and I hope he can tell me how he did it.

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I’ve just done some more testing and found the same as you - opening the exported file in Photoshop does not maintain the transparency, but opening the same image in Affinity Photo, ON1 2020 and PSP 2020 does, as does re-opening it in Denoise AI.

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Thanks for the confirmation Paul.

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The transparecy issue goes back at least 2-4 months and is a bug that Topaz never fixed. I first found it with GigaPixel, where it showed as a problem first with PNG files that had transparency. Not all files had this problem, only some, for no known reason.

I had already isolated the problme to the step that writes the processed file to the output because the preview looks correct and the GigaPix program crashed just prior to writing the output file. This was confirmed by Tech Support.

I have since reported it to Tech Support and they were able to duplicate the problem, but never solved it. Prior to leaving he found a workaround to the PNG issue. This was to request a file conversions to TIFF instead of keeping it PNG. This worked really well. However, with the next update, the TIFF workaround stopped working and made the transparent regions opaque. Now every update beta or otherwise now has this BUG.

Unfortunately the Tech Support person who took this seriously and who duplicated it left so there is no one else working on this. I opened the ticket again, which is how I found it that the Tech Support fellow had left but no one had picked up on the unfinished problem and after several months never heard from Tech Support I sent a query about a week ago and still no response.

The most important message however is this:
This bug appears to be in every AI program (not Mask AI of course). Had someone fixed it right when it first appeared, it would have caused less confusion and frustration. Of course the fact that not all PNG and TIFF files have the problem makes it much more difficult to solve.

So if you have a file that fails to work, please open a Ticket and submit your errant file.

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@terryleemartin13
@PaulM

Unfortunately this forum doesn’t provide the means to upload TIFF files, however the link below will enable you to download a file named Test.zip. It’s about 2528KB and contains two TIFF images, GTFALCON-A.TIFF and GTFALCON-B.TIFF.

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=04851619130201618044

Can you please extract the two TIFF files, open them in Photoshop and tell me whether either, neither or both show with transparency.

I see transparency with both of them.

Thanks Paul.
The image GTFALCON-B.TIFF was saved from Affinity Photo as an 8bit LZW compressed TIFF file.

GTFALCON-B.TIFF was then opened in DeNoiseAI (working as a standalone), processed in DeNoiseAI mode using the auto settings, then saved as an 8bit LZW compressed TIFF file with the file name GTFALCON-A.TIFF.

So the question now perhaps is why PhotoShop can open them properly, but not the other image both you and Terry experienced the issue with.

Good question! I’ll do some more testing with different output parameters from Denoise AI (can’t remember what I used now) and see what transpires.

Well - everything is now opening in Photoshop. I no longer have the actual image I created yesterday - but I’ve just created TIFFs in Affinity and PS, processed them both through Denoise (standalone) and they both open in PS. I have no explanation to offer.