It seems to be the same speed for me; I've used BMP and TIF files,( I don't use Photoshop) Tif only is rendered with an entire mask and is slower to load in the 2d paint program. A normal scene (without extra lighting)with a poser4 imported object with 300 dpi and 2000/1500 pix is rendered in about 2 hours (with an old machine pentium2).I think it can be faster with an athlon 800, or more !