Background being added by "develop" mode?

[dkwdkw]

I'm starting with a PSD file with no background. If you do an "edit" you see the black/white checks for background areas (would be nice to be able to toggle that off!). If I go to "view", a white background is added to the display (this is fine) and if I go back to edit, it retains the transparency. But, if I go to "develop" and back to "edit", the transparent area is replaced with a white background. (No layers are added.) This is not what I want to happen. Is this the expected behavior? Is there a way to change that?

Photo Studio Ultimate 2022 v15.0 build 2798.

[dkwdkw]

So, to add to the issue. It seems as if we have some setting that forces a background (black right now) when saving the file. We want to retain the transparency and only have the subject saved without any background. We've tried saving as JPG and PSD.

[Greyfox]

dkwdkw

1. In Edit mode, transparent background is show as checker board, as it is in Affinity Photo, Gimp and some other editors. There is no option to change that. (In Edit mode you can place a layer below the image layer and flood fill with any color you like if you want, which then enables you to easily switch between the checker board and a solid color)

2. JPG does NOT support transparency, TIFF, PNG, PSD, TARGA and ACDC do.

3. In ACDSee only Edit mode shows transparency as checker board
In Manage, and View modes transparent areas in TIFF and TARGA are shown as Black, and in PSD, PNG and ACDSee as white.
You can change the transparent area color for PNG in the IDE_ACDStd.api however the thumbnails in manage mode will continue to show the old color until you rebuild them.

4. Develop mode does not support transparency, so if you take an image into develop mode the transparent areas are replaced with color.
So taking an image from Edit to Develop mode and back to Edit mode replaces the transparent area with solid color.
That is just how it is, there is no user setting to change that.

5. If you want to export images with transparency (where the format supports it) set bit depth to Automatic.

[dkwdkw]

Thanks. That's helpful.

Now that the image has an all black background, I'm sure there's a way to say, "take any pixel with this color and change its color to some other color". But, I'm not able to find that transformation command/process.

[Greyfox]

Thanks. That's helpful.

Now that the image has an all black background, I'm sure there's a way to say, "take any pixel with this color and change its color to some other color". But, I'm not able to find that transformation command/process.

The image might show in Manage Mode and View mode with a black background, but if it genuinely has transparency it will show as checker board in Edit Mode.
If it shows in Edit mode with a black background, then it doesn't have transparency. You can use the Magic Wand Selection tool to select the background color, then use Select\Delete Selected pixels to remove that area.

If you are doing that, as a starting point set the Magic Wand selection tool mode to "Color", the threshold to a fairly low value (some where around 10), and tick the connected box. Adjust as necessary.