Thanks, much appreciate everyone sharing the knowledge, I've learned more here than slowly reading through the manual.   :-) The tutorial manual that comes with PP2010 is pretty good, but would have been nice if it covered even more topics.

Laurie, I'll check out the VSS, thanks for the new link, I assume it will work with PP2010.

Hborre, I did mention that I used the "Auto" render settings for this last render. So the lighting settings are ok, that's good, I'll leave them as is.  Now, I'll switch over to "Manual" render settings. So just turn on "Cast Shadows" and "Ray Tracing", and "Smooth Polygons",...that's it?  What about all the sliders, numbers, and check boxes to the right, they all look ok?

Once I get it all set according to your suggestions I'll save it as a preset so it's easy to load in next time.

I'd love to see what settings everyone else uses, that would be great! :-)  Will render again if I can tonight, if not tomorrow morning and post a new image.

MM