I'm going to sound like a complete ignorant here but rather than waste time mucking about, I thought I'd ask the experts. I've always saved images as bitmaps but I've read here and there that you can save images with alpha channels. Am I correct in thinking that this means that the background is saved out as just that with the figure on its own layer? If so, then how is this done? - I can't find it in the manual (I may be missing it of course!). All thoughts welcome.

Save in TIF or PNG format to get an alpha channel to separate the scene content from the background.

It's under File/Export or File/Save. I have found some applictions (Vue) do not like having a background in the poser scene as it seems to prevent a a "clean" alpha chanel. Here is an example of a pic composited by extracting the images using alpha pane and putting them on different layers: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=658901&Start=19&Artist=Richard+T&ByArtist=Yes Also the transparency of the texture map comes through as well, as in: http://www.dicktay.com/V3CloakGold.html

Many thanks to you both for your help. I've managed to get the scene content without a background using tiff and png in Fireworks. Oddly though, the tiff doesn't work with PSP8!? But it will work with the png - so there's my format of choice! Thanks again Neill (philebus)

I save in tiff all the time and open it in PSP8... Go to Selection/Load selection from Alpha Channel

You also get an alpha channel with the photoshop PSD format

Thank you both - I'll try these out. I hate to think that I'm not getting the most from a program but there's always so much to learn! Thanks again, Neill (philebus)