Help Newb Skinner....

I have little experience with skinning before this and I am trying to make my first TFT skin. Now I have finished part of my skin and I want to see how it looks so far, I am using a program called WC3 Viewer and I have my skin saved in targa format however I do not know how to view the skin on a 3d model again... So how do I get my skin to be on 3d model in WC3 Viewer?
Also I saw the thread on alpha channals, However I am still unsure about what they are, or how to edit them. I believe someone had a tutorial for editing them and I came to a step where it said just edit them, but I dunno how to "edit them"... I dunno even know what to edit them for

save ur skin as a blp using the name of the skin and then go to crrent file and then go to remap textures choos witch file ur remapping the all u have to do is select skin and its done and alpha is the team color and if u messthem up itll mess up team color and heres pics to help

Thanks man, I got the skin in WC3 viewer. So I assume the alphas are for editing team colour? I not gonna mess with those then...
Anyways, thanks again.

oh no no no alphas can be quite usefull removing parts of the bodie and weapons shields and adding places making a sword look like a jagged spike and so on the possibilities only end when the model cannot fit the skin or vice versa so if u want help on alpha editing tell me if u got msn and give me a bell sometime id be happy to guide u thru

p.s wat do u use psp or p?(paint shop pro or adobe photoshop)

Okay, I am almost done my first skin so I think I will try alpha editing on my second... I would appreciate if you could go through alpha editing with me, my msn is [email protected], I am not sure what is yours so just add me...
Btw my first skin is almost done in WIP section, I dunno what to make for shamen claw hand and the top of his shoulder looks plain so I rly need some suggestions on what to put there to make it more interesting...
Again, thx for help!
Edit: I use photoshop