Revit User's Manual/Rendering

The rendering engine in Revit was vastly improved in the 2009 version. This chapter should be expanded upon to discuss the new engine.

Alpha Channel

When a rendering is exported in the TIFF file format, the sky area is saved as an alpha channel. This makes it very easy to strip out in Photoshop to be replaced with a background image of your choice.

• Export your rendering as a TIFF file.
• Open the TIFF file in Photoshop.
• You won't have any layers in your document (and you need these to have a transparent background), so double click the background layer in the layers pallette. *This will turn the background into a new layer (through a dialogue box).
• In the Select menu, choose Load Selection...
• Ensure that the document is correct (the same as the one you are working on)
• Ensure that the Channel is Alpha 1
• Select the Invert check box if you want the selection to be the sky. Otherwise the selection will be the foreground.
• Use "New Selection" as the operation
• Choose OK
• If your selection is the sky, hit the delete button and the sky will disappear. If your selection is your building, choose Copy and then you can paste the building into another Photoshop file that has a background image.