Virtual Blueline: Copying outlines into a channel

Here's how it's done:

Make sure your image has been stitched, scaled, and converted to 300dpi greyscale.

First, we're going to save the outlines in an Alpha Channel, so that we can load them as a selection and fill them with colour.

In the Select Menu, pick Select All.
In the Edit Menu, pick Copy.
In the Select Menu, pick Deselect.

This puts a copy of the outlines into the clipboard.

Go to the Layers Palette (if you can't see it, try Show Layers in the Window Menu).

Click on the Channels tab.

The Palette will now display Channels instead of Layers. There should be 5 channels, CMYK, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. You're going to make a new channel.

Click on the little triangle at the top right of the palette and pick New Channel... from the list that appears.

The New Channel dialog box appears (see above). Make sure the settings are the same as the ones shown here. It's particularly important that Colour Indicates: should be set to Selected Areas.

Name the new channel "Outlines." Click OK. A new channel will appear in the Channels Palette.
In the Edit Menu, pick Paste. The outlines you copied should appear in the new channel.
In the Select Menu, pick Deselect.

Click on the channel CMYK, so the file will display normally when you return to layers. Now click on the Layers tab.