I've been delving in and just playing with all the render settings and pixel raising the pixel samples seems to be the winning answer for the blemishes. If I do get them again I will post the image. I've done so many renders at this point the old one is gone. TrekkiGrrrl... I've taken your advise and ignored the warning signs. other than the blemishes, it seems to work fine. and now that I've upped the pixel samples, they aren't much of a concern anymore lol. Thanks for the advise guys... hopefully I can get back to posting something again soon. R