removing the black is easy. there are two ways to do this depending on what effect u want. 1> start with black on white, and when the fire looks good use hue/saturation (ctrl+u) to get whatever colour fire u want. 2> http://morepunkinstuff.tripod.com/filters/Mac/mac.html download the filters frrom here (the link's towards the bottom of the page) and use mac's remove white on the inverted image of the yellow on black fire. after applying the filter, you'll end up with a blue transparent fire which u can invert back to get the original fire colour. play abt to get what u want. for anyone who's reading this, please get hold of mac's remove white...it's one plugin i wouldn't leave home without. :-)