Exporting masked image from Pixelmator Pro to Photoshop & retaining editable layer mask

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2019-12-29 07:29:50

I'm in the process of moving from Photoshop to Pixelmator Pro, and I'm finishing off a complex Photoshop project, which for various reasons I want to complete in PS.

However, I'm taking advantage of a couple of PP features (including Super Resolution, which I think is gobsmackingly awesome!), and also the Quick Selection tool, which on initial experimentation seems way better than PS's. So, I now have a masked image (ie, original image, plus the layer mask), which I've exported as a PSD file. When I open this PSD file in Photoshop, the masked image is there, but not the layer mask, which I need to do some final fine tuning against the background and other images in the project.

Is there something I'm missing?
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2020-01-02 14:38:06

For now, this actually isn't supported — definitely an important thing to add in the future though. As a workaround, you could use these steps:

1. Select the mask layer
2. Choose Edit > Load Selection
3. Choose any selection tool, Control-click the selection and choose Convert into Shape.

You can then use that shape layer to load a selection in PS and create a mask from it. Apologies for the inconvenience!
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2020-01-03 02:28:11

Thanks Andrius, that worked (on a quick test, without doing the fine tuning). I thought it might be something like this, but wasn't quite sure how to go about it. I've not used the "Load selection" feature (in Photoshop, or anywhere else) much at all, so I didn't really know where to start.

I ended up redoing the mask in PS (which I'm very used to doing) but the whole time I kept thinking how much easier it had been in Pixelmator Pro; I really like the way how in PP, the quick selection tool jumps ahead to show you the area you've selected (or are deselecting). Makes it very quick and intuitive.
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2020-01-06 12:18:42

by MarcIA 2020-01-03 02:28:11 Thanks Andrius, that worked (on a quick test, without doing the fine tuning). I thought it might be something like this, but wasn't quite sure how to go about it. I've not used the "Load selection" feature (in Photoshop, or anywhere else) much at all, so I didn't really know where to start.

I ended up redoing the mask in PS (which I'm very used to doing) but the whole time I kept thinking how much easier it had been in Pixelmator Pro; I really like the way how in PP, the quick selection tool jumps ahead to show you the area you've selected (or are deselecting). Makes it very quick and intuitive.
Glad to hear that helped! And it's awesome to hear you like the Quick Selection tool in Pixelmator Pro, we're pretty happy with it too. :smiley: