My girlfriend and I heard somewhere that you can render a poser image as a layered file (i.e. when you bring it up into PSP or Photoshop, objects, background, ect. are all on seperate layers.) Is this true, and if so, how is it done?

If you render your scene on a blank background (such as a single character rendered against black), you can save it as a PDF (or certain other formats, but I use PDF), it will save the alpha channel as well. Then you go to the Channel tab, scroll to Alpha and click the little dotted circle to load Alpha channel as a selection, click back on the RGB view and copy and paste for a "lift" of the character without a background. Anyhoo, that's how I do it. If Poser can render each thing on a different layer, that's news to me.

You can render different parts of a graphic by posing the characters or props separately (or making them invisible) and then bringing the various layers into Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. By saving as *.tff or other format that allows for an alpha channel, you can delete the background and have the various elements in layers for special effects. Maybe that's what is meant. I think if you do a forum search, you'll find more information on this topic...seems to me that this question was asked relatively recently and someone had a better explanation than mine. Anyway, I did one of my graphics that way because I could only do the foreground and background in Poser 5, but I wanted to take advantage of the better lighting effect available for the mid layer where my characters were...was pretty easy to do (I use Paint Shop Pro).

This is good to know. I use PSP too and love working in layers. Thanks, dialyn!

I messed up my explanation (it's been a long day). I could only do the foreground and background in Poser 4 (because the items I was using don't render in Poser 5 for some reason) and then I did the characters in Poser 5 to take advantage of a lighting effect there. The bonus was that when I deleted the background using the alpha channel, part of the graphic became transparent in a way that I wanted it to. Very cool. I love layers too. It really gives you some extra depth and interest to a graphic. I know not everyone likes postworked renderings, but sometimes I just can't get an effect I like any other way. :)

Poser is great for certain people, but seems a bit limited for doing certain things. I wanted to do layering if possible because when my renders come up, it is hard to cut the background away from the character most of the time. I tried rendering without anti-alias, but doing that takes away the detail of the outer edges of the character. Anyways, thanks all for the help!

Hi I was playing around with ideas to create my mouseski pic before christmas and well this might be an idea. first create your background in poser, in the experiment I used some trees. render them as has been said against a neutral background. 2nd take the image into psp or pshop and crate a mask (transmap) 3rd use a combination of the image and the mask on a bacground prop (square, infinite cove, cyclorama etc ) this was an experiment which I'm sure has been done before but it may help Dave

I like that idea a lot, Dave. I need to try that. :)