Hey Paul, you're close to home! I live in Stony Plain! Thank you for the quick reply..
Ok, the only option I've been able to find is:
1. Create mask from object. This only works on one object, or if they're all merged/flattened
2. menu: Mask > Save > Save Mask to Disk...
All this does however is save the mask as an 8 bit greyscale on it's own... although that is very helpful it still does not solve my original problem of saving the alpha channel with the file.
I do understand objects. I've worked with photo-paint for probably about ~12 to 15 hours now.
My original question still stands- how do you save the alpha (transparent) pixels with the RGB values? (thus making it RGB(A)?)