hey guys thanks for the help, i solved the problem(ish) haha my problem was that photoshop wasnt letting me save it out with alpha channels, then for some reason it started too. so that allowed me to finally save the alpha matte. and i tried just saving it as a separate image and then plugging it into the transparency channel but that wasnt working either. I think it was just the software playing mind games with me as it was late but i just couldnt get them to work!
solved now.

thanks again.