Importing Mask, exporting from Photoshop

[Corby]

Hey,
I can't seem to export a working mask from photoshop. Can someone tell me what the required formats that are involved? ex) 256 colors?, resolution, file format, 8-bit or 16-bit, foreground color, background color, ect ect... I have no clue on how to make this work. Also, I can use a mask for walk-behind areas right?
Thanks!

[CodeJunkie]

If I remember correctly it's just 256 colours, same size as your normal rooms.  Walk-behinds can be done, yes.  Try using black for transparency and say, blue for the mask part.  You could probably use any two colours.  Make sure you save it as a supported format, I'd recommend .png files (and for everything else too) as they're small and efficient, and can be optimised.

[Corby]

Ok, sounds simple enough. But before I do this, how do I make a photoshop image into 256 colors? Do I just make the two colors I'm using for the mask one of the 256 colors? If so, does anyone have a hexidecimal color I can use (besides black of course).
Thanks again.

[Hollister Man]

In the IMAGE menu, under MODE, (I think) you can choose CMYK, RGB, GRAYSCALE, BITMAP, or INDEXED COLOR.  That last one is what you want.  Its REALLY annoying to do in Photoshop and I would suggest using Paint Shop Pro.

If you choose a color from the standard color palette in Windows, its almost guaranteed to be on the old palette.

[Corby]

That worked like a charm. I had to go from indexed color to rgb twice, but I figured out a method that worked. PNG format worked as well.
Thanks for the advice.