Can you give some more information as to what you are trying to accomplish here? You can select all in a channel, then create a new layer and paste it, but I suspect you are looking for more than this.
I am trying to copy the red, green and blue channels to make them layers above the background layer. When I choose a channel and then select all – I can’t seem to find the command to make it appear as a layer – the ‘make new layer’ button seems to make only a blank layer. My goal is to be able to use seperate parts of the different RGB channels for BW conversion.
Richard
Go to channel. Edit>define pattern. Go to layer. Fill>pattern.
OK something tells me Philo is in the wrong topic … or I am really off base somewhere
Richard.
Yes, you get a blank new layer. But can you not paste the channel you copied into it?
You can also (if the image does not have layers already) convert to Multichannel, and then use the split option in the Channel palette. This might be of use.
Richard.
Select your channel. Ctrl-a (select all), ctrl-c (copy), go to layer palette, and hit Ctrl-v (paste).
Mathias
Thanks – I’m going to give this a try tonight.
Richard
Don: I didn’t see that he said CS. The method I suggested works with all version of PS. Newer version will let you copy/paste between channels and layers (… if you "select all"), but older versions will not. I’m not sure when they added the feature. It was sometime between PS 4 and PS 7.
Cool Philo
I actually didn’t read your message well enough either, and didn’t recognize it as an alternative solution to the problem.
Don
Philo,
I think you are actually right that Photoshop wont let you copy a color channel directly, but it will let you copy an alpha channel.
The solution, if you want to copy a color channel to a layer, is to drag the color channel to the new channel icon, and copy / paste this duplicate to a new layer.
Just for reference, Advanced Layer Blending will allow you to control which color channels are affected by any given layer.
Mathias
