Exporting still image with transparent background.

How do I export a still image from FCP with a transparent background? I can do it with video from an Animation sequence, why can't I do it with a still?

Do not render the material. Export using Photoshop. Is this what you're doing? Something else?

* Park your timeline marker on your export frame
* Export using Quicktime Conversion
* Format: Still Image - click OPTIONS
* Format: Photoshop - click OPTIONS
* Millions of colors +

This gives you a Photoshop PSD with an embedded alpha channel.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

im not clear as to what youre trying to do???

I'm trying to export still image from FCP with a transparent background to store and use later in FCP. I'm trying to do exactly what grafixjoe described above but I'm obviously doing something wrong because I bring it back into FCP and its not transparent. Do I have to do this on an Animation sequence?

i understand that. what im curious is to what it is and why? if its transparent on your timeline, isnt it transparent in your source file? and if its composited on your timeline, there IS NO background.

can you attach a screen grab of your timeline, canvas, viewer?

Can you confirm that you did not render this content before exporting?

Yes, I have tried unrendered as well as rendered.
I have created basically what I use as a template in FCP using slugs,shapes and some .psd files. Now I want to save all these layers as one transparent still. Since I used slugs and shapes there is no source file. Is that right? I know this was probably not the ideal way of going about this but it's what I have and I'm trying to simplify it.

A slug fills the screen with black. In the view popup of the canvas check what the alpha display looks like and report back.