Spray transparency issue

[Barlim]

I just whipped up this new spray in Photoshop, but when I use it in-game the parts that should be completely transparent... aren't, quite. There's a little tiny bit of "ghosting" around the edges that I can't figure out for the life of me, considering there's only one layer on the final image and there's simply no colors at all at these areas.

[link=http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y254/DrBiggles/koolaidman_problem.jpg]Here's[/link] what I mean. You can see around the edges of the "hole" that there's some coloring... you can even see his foot "on the other side", which baffles me because I simply erased it. Any idea what might be causing this?

 

[Lafinass]

How did you do the transparency? That ghosting looks to be the matte edge of a GIF. Try doing a TGA with an alpha channel. There is a sticky addressing sprays that should help.

 

[Barlim]

I actually checked over your sticky to make sure that I was doing it right (I've made a spray with transparency before, but it was a little while ago). Everything was the same as in your sticky, and I did use a TGA with alpha channel, although the original images used to make it were a .jpeg and .png.

[link=http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y254/DrBiggles/kam-help.jpg]Here's[/link] a shot of how it looks in PS.

 

[MaD sKiLLz =FL=]

maybe its a thin wall? lol

 

[Lafinass]

That's odd. I've always gotten very clean transparencies out of TGA files done this way.

Actually, here's an idea. Throw a background layer on there in photoshop and fill it with black. I've found occasionally with that checkered background I'll miss something. There might be a faint trace from what you cut out. If you used the eraser tool to clear the background from the original it can leave partially opaque traces of the background that would be included in the selection for the alpha layer. So basically you might have some 10% opaque pixels around the edges that when you convert to VTF using the alpha channel lose their transparency index and just become entirely solid.

 

[Barlim]

You know, I just now noticed the Art forum, where this thread should have gone... sometimes I could swear I'm blind.

I've already tried erasing around the edges at 100% opacity, but I'll try it again with the black background.
Anyhow, if I stick to spraying on dark surfaces, the ghosting effect doesn't show up too well, so I'm not terribly worried about it.

EDIT: Wow, good call on the black background... I don't know how in the world I did it, but I must have had the wrong layer selected when I tried cleaning it up earlier. /facepalm

Thanks for the help, this should fix it. Now to fill in that ugly white with something else...

 

[Lafinass]

No problem. In the future, do what I do. Don't use the eraser, use the polygon tool to trace chunks off the edge to clear (or trace the whole thing, but if you mess up it's less work to redo if you're working a segment at a time). If you must use the eraser, zoom in till it's fairly pixelated and make sure to use a high contrast background.