Fix / Explanation: PNG transparency artifacts when importing Photoshop Exported into Content

If you import a PNG and you are getting “garbage” in Unreal and then open it in photoshop and it looks fine

there is a way to recover that garbage information

Go to Layer > Layer Mask > From Transparency to move that transparency into a Mask

Then set the properties of that Mask to Density 0%

and BAM! there it is, all that garbage is back!

Hurray, now how did that garbage information got created in the first place?

Well I’m glad you asked.

When an artist creates an image in photoshop and saves it as PNG, photoshop is creating that invisible color information but obscuring it from the artists, why should they care right?

Let’s say they create a Circle selection and paint it with a gradient

photoshop will paint color information into the BOUNDS of that selection, So whey it gets saved, the color information actually looks like this.

the same applies if they try to use the lasso and paint inside the selection

The artist has no idea that this is what we are getting in unreal, because photoshop doesn’t tell them that.