Working with channels

Photopea and other popular image editing applications use channels that contain color information about an image and can preserve selections. All images comprise at least one channel, and often more. When Photopea opens an image, it automatically calculates and stores the color channels. Both channels and masks are greyscale images that you can edit like any other image.

The number of color channels created depends on an image’s color mode. Each channel can be edited, deleted, or converted to a mask, which enables you to protect specific parts of an image. You can also opt to hide and show channels. Showing just one channel displays the image in grayscale.

Common color modes are RGB, CMYK, Bitmap, Grayscale, Duotone, and Indexed Color mode:

• The RGB color mode consists of three channels: Red, Green, and Blue, along with a composite channel for editing the main image
• The CMYK color mode consists of four channels: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and...