Hello everyone,
I'm doing some work with a newly acquired Poser version 6, and I've come across a strange problem. I imported a background picture into my scene. I went to window>document size to scene would be. It's 682x586 pixels. So I took my background pic, opened it in Paint Shop Pro, sized it accordingly and saved it. Then I actually imported it into Poser 6, and it looked ok - see pic below

But then, when I rendered it, the background picture actually shrank. See next pic...

Does anyone know why this happened and what I can do to counteract it? I'm pretty new to Poser 6, but even so, this is beyond weird. It's annoying and I really want to finish my scene. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks -

Why don't you put the background image on a flat plane? 

You can also go into the Material Room and click on the Background node and tick Auto Fit.  That works just as well as putting it on a flat plane and you won't have to resize the background image.

Well, I just had a look and believe it or not, the background fit checkbox was already ticked on. I ticked it off, then back on again, re-rendered and got the same result. Hmmmmm..... I just wonder about this. I never had a problem like this with Poser 5.
I'll go ahead and place it on a flat plane prop and re-try it.

If you already resized the image it might change the dimensions since your render size may not be the window size.

You can always try bringing in a new background image and then making sure the box is ticked with the new image.  If that doesn't work then putting it on a flat plane is your best bet.

I've never had a problem bringing in a background image without resizing in a paint program and I've been using Poser since ver. 4.

This is indeed a strange problem. I went ahead and placed it onto a flat plane and I actually liked the way it turned out. Manipulating the plane was a chore in itself for some odd reason. But in any event, I'll try your suggestion on my next render. In the meantime, I'm posting the finished picture in my gallery now. Please have a look if you'd like.

Make sure you have the latest service releases,

Latest service releases? Are those like software patches? How and where can I find them?

http://my.smithmicro.com/win/poser/updates.html

scroll down to the P6 updates

 I think I know a fix (if memory serves me correct...)

At least in Poser 7, and I THINK it was the same in Poser 6, when you open the material Room and click "Background" the BG colour node is attached, and has a grey colour. Now, using the "use as background picture" plugs the BG Picture node in instead, but rather than this, try setting the BG Colour to white and then plug in a texture map there, with your background image.

It's a wellknown Poser bug, this. And IIRC, this is the easiest way to fix it.

I thought the fix for this was to increase the Maximum Texture size in render settings to at least your background size. Try it.

Ow! Ow! Ow... You people all make my head hurt!

Victoria Lee has the answer!

When you import a background you have the option of setting your viewport setting to fit the background.

Unfortunately, this does not effect (affect?) your render dimensions.

You need to go to Render -> Render Dimensions

Then in Render Dimensions you can either manually key in your aspect ratio if you know it (I do all my renders at 1600x1200, for example) or if you don't choose -> Render to Exact Resolution, then check "constrain aspect ratio", then click "match document window".

Now, if you want you can increase or decrease the size of your render.  Changing one number will change the other one to the proper corrosponding number.

Make sure everything is set at "pixels".  The other measurements (inches, cms) are for print and will only confuse things if you just want to post ina gallery of work on your computer.

That said, choose a decent size, at least what your monitor display is set at, for example.

(HD Television is 1920 by 1080, but that would only print out at 6.4 inches by 3.6 inches at 300 dpi... a low quality magazine setting.)

(Don't bother changing from 72dpi unless you are going to print... even then I would just change that in Photoshop later... 72 dpi is dots per inch of all TVs and computer displays... when going to print it gets kind of complicated and that's a whole different discussion.  Others will chime in and try to tell you otherwise... ignore them.)

I hope this helps!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2798634&ebot_calc_page#message_2798634

I said that already

Good grief! How complicated! In Poser 5, it was easy... you just set the background pic to the size of your document window, import it and there you go, simple as can be. This is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more complicated than it needs to be. Why was the procedure  changed, I wonder?

it was changed because Poser was too easy to use. It needs to be complicated like the big boys toys :)

Hahahaha! That's gotta be it!