Split & Combine RGB or CMYK Channel Separations?

[DJJohnson]

I just now noticed that there doesn't appear to be any easy way to split a photo into separate RGB or CMYK channel layers. Yes, you can select only those channels in the layer palette to work on each layer. But that's not what I am looking for. In the Layout > Image menu there's a "CMYK Separation" option, but that just makes your image into a CMYK single layer. No different than if you used "Convert Layer Type > CMYK", but with some extra features for color management.

In PSP there are the options to Split To RGB, CMYK, or HSL, where it will create new gray-scale images from each channel. Then there's the option to Combine Channels from RGB, CMYK, or HSL. Where you can select any of the proper number of gray-scale (b&w) images to recreate the appropriate full-color image from them again.

Is there some easy way to do this in PL32 and I'm just not seeing it?

I thought maybe I could use the Layer Palette's Channel tab and use the Copy Channel to Selection, then use the Selection to Layer tool, but that didn't do at all what I expected. So I tried using the hue/saturation tool to colorize those selection layers back to R, G, and B images. I got lost when the layers no longer held any color information at all after that.

Any hints or tips on how to manipulate different color channels and putting them into gray-scale channels? (Just like they show on the Layer Palette's Channel tab.) It would be nice if I could just drag and drop those color channels from that layer palette into a new picture and recombine them as needed.

Is this something that's always been missing? And if so, can it be made available?

[Martin Stricker]

Hallo,

first convert your picture to CMYK, than choose Tool/Change Channels. In the following Dialog, choose as source the channel you want to work with and as destination clipboard, than click ok. With Ctrl+E you will get a greyscale picture from your choosen channel. When you have done all your work with that channel, copy the channel to the clipboard with Ctrl+C, than change to your CMYK Picture and choose again Tool/Change Channels. Source is clipboard, destination is the channel you worked with.

You can also create an Action for speeding up your work.

Martin

[DJJohnson]

Thanks very much for pointing out that tool. I recall seeing it before but I didn't know it did all that.

It's not as automatic as I like, but it'll do the job that I need. I'll see if I can figure out how to create an action for the task. The nice part is that my workspace isn't cluttered up with all those RGB or CMYK color channels that I don't really need to have open, as used to happen in other editors, it was annoying. In PL32 it's just the one that I need being shifted to/from the clipboard. I like that.

Still tho, would be nice to be able to just drag & drop them from the Layers Palette "Channels" list. So much easier to keep track of what is going where. More visual.

Anyway, THANKS!