Sometimes it’s really difficult to make an object, like a glass of water or an icecube, appear transparent like in the real world. Sure, we can use the layer opacity in photoshop to make layers transparent.

But what if we just want to erase some small areas of an image or what about semi-transparent objects with a background shining through? Can we erase that background and replace it with somethin else without destroying the object itself? Sure we can!

One easy way to make objects transparent is to use the alpha channel in photoshop. Within the alpha channel only the white color stands for full opacity, grey areas are transparent and black areas are invisible. So what does that mean in detail? Play the video to see what this is all about.

Icecube image by Evgeny Terentyev | istockphoto.com