**Sorry you're frustrated - you're right about not wanting to be surprised - I myself might have someone short peering over my shoulder and asking "wat's that?" Just checking back in from the weekend. WOW - that quote has been used TWICE and was not only taken out of context, but spun and exploded into a completely diferent topic. Lemur01 and TerraDreams - please reread the ENTIRE post again, but this time with this thought in mind: I was directly responding to a person looking for an intellectual debate that turned juvenile (granted, I thought it was funny, but it was juvenile - and yes, lemur01 I have always thought the little Coppertone girl was a cute illustration). I in NO way support censorship - never claimed I did. I do not, have not, and never will think the human form is something that should be taboo, not discussed, should be hidden, etc. Human form is a beautiful thing and that's what I plan on teaching my kid. Believe it or not, I have no problem with it being taught in schools. No one should be bropught up to feel their body is "shameful". And when he asks "What's that?" you assumed I'm a coward - I plan on answering all his questions honestly as that's what I'll expect of him when I have questions myself (possibly namely, "what's in the little bag you just put behind your back?"). I never claimed RR should be responsible for the raising of my child - I raise my child, not the village, and further I take full respnsibility for his actions as I'M the one supposedly teaching him rules of society. Now, that being said, LadyFrog is exactly right - kids are all over the house - they pop into the room to show you something they just did, etc. There are certain things I'd rather not let him see YET - he'll see them later, he'll even look forward to it, but at 2yrs old, when I turn the filters "on" I shouldn't have to scan the room and hallway, then lock the door to make sure he's not within visual shot of my monitor when I'm reading what I hope to be an intellectual debate (hence my programming suggestion). My apologies Cynlee - I know you said questions asked and questions answered, so move on (keys jangling and all - yeah, that was pretty funny!) - I just felt I should point out it was the wrong question, taken out of context - especially since it was ME being misquoted. -Lew ;-)

That's funny! Yeah, I remember the ebay shot - pretty funny also. I wish I had something to share but I don't think I have any surprises in any of my shots - other than being able to see me in some of my product photography (little reflections in the sides of some watches and stuff - usually in the knobs) - but I'm not naked.

Not entirely sure what you're going for (scanned B&W negs and they look like the negs?) but to invert your colors, hit Ctrl+I (Command+I for Mac). If they are "colors" and not shades of gray you're trying to invert, you can try it but it's going to give you the literally "opposite" color meaning: ("start color - opposite color") red - cyan green - magenta blue - yellow Hope that helps. Good luck- -Lew ;-)

Stacey- Is it POSSIBLE for the programmers to come up with a slight variation of the very box I'm typing in right now - but for the "Post a new message" tic in the forums list for starting a new thread? This would require (to my knowledge) a change to have 3 of these boxes. 1 - The first one that has a checkbox to allow the "Attach File" box to be active at the start of a thread. 2 - Then, if checked (meaning "yes") the "Would you like to post a reply" would not contain the "Attach File" section. 3 - If unchecked, (you guessed it!) there would be no "Attach File" section - OR it would be just plain inactive (perhaps darkened or blacked out?). This would allow people to post a link in the text, but no pics if you're looking for a serious text discussion, and for someone looking for an online quickie tut you can have image attachments. Yes, I just suggested a headache for your programmers... Jump - from the start of reading that thread, I was asking myself when (not IF - but WHEN) is someone gona be a smart-alick and post a pic with obnoxiously big-boobies? Ya KNEW it was gonna happen - just a matter of time. I was just surprised the first one was a link. Sorry you're frustrated - you're right about not wanting to be surprised - I myself might have someone short peering over my shoulder and asking "wat's that?" -Lew ;-)

It'll generally be a speed increase - but not necessarily "this diameter brush will now move at an acceptable rate" kind of thing. Things will definitely move faster, and you can handle some larger file sizes better, but there will still be things you'll need to wait for a couple of seconds - like your large Smudge brushes, Gaussian Blurs, Radial Blurs, etc. Again, algorithms too complicated to be an instant redraw on the screen.

Tantarus is right - Photoshop's favorite food is RAM - you can NEVER have too much! Yeah, when you are doing something like the smudge brush with a LARGE brush size you're gonna see some slowdown because of the calculations required to perform the task. I realize that should go without saying, but keep in mind that specific tool is not like just drawing with the airbrush - it's figuring out the reactions to the colors and densities you'rer applying it to in a way that won't be "pixellated" and chunky - realistic! You really can't compare that to 3D games as they have entire rendering engines built-in specifically to handle shading - and realize MANY things in there are pre-baked in that they already have the rendering of how light is affecting the surface. Look into the specs of your 3.2Ghz machine and see if you can use 1GB RAM sticks (and make sure you have the type of RAM written down - 333, 2700, 3200, etc.). If you can use 1GB sticks go to www.tigerdirect.com and order yourself some more RAM and put it in! But just know, the more complicated the brush or filter, the longer its gonna take to finish its job no matter HOW much RAM is installed. Good luck- -Lew ;-)

I'm suddenly blanking - can't remember if you can render in Poser with Alpha layers - if you can then there's your solution. Upload the image (no bigger than 800x800 I suppose) and I can give you some advice. Can't figure out from your description if the background is complicated, or a single color - in which case, use the Magic Wand tool (hit "w" on your keyboard) and click anywhere in your background color to make your selection (again, if it's a solid color background), go to the top and click Select>Modify>Expand - and usually for this you only really need to expand by 1 pixel. Then Shit+Ctrl+I to invert your selection, then Ctrl+J to pop it onto its own layer. Viola - separated. Hope that helps- -Lew ;-)

1280x1024 Yet we're still advised to design our websites to fit 800x600 becuase MOST people have theirs to that setting - not even 1024x768. "Most people" meaning not computer savvy, and don't know/aren't comfortable changing the settings.

I think more people are figuring out the eco-systems, and figuring out how they can change materials and lighting to be more realistic. Yeah, there's some great looking stuff there! BTW - excellent skin mats, lighting, and renders yer Dudeness! -Lew ;-)

Really cool ideas all-around everyone, and thanks for the votes - glad you enjoyed it. I've picked and idea and sent it to Agiel - maybe a bit too complicated, so we'll see where it goes. Excellent competition!

At least for the simple animations (with the Animation Wizard at least - haven't dived too deeply into the editors yet), the frame you're looking at in your Camera View is going to be your starting point. And then it just goes forward (or whatever direction you want) from there. But in the editor you can set that the animation will begin (say, wind blowing trees and grass, cars moving forward, etc.) so things start happenening, and then you can set keyframes for the CAMERA to start moving around in the scene.

Looks like I'll be saving up around $2,000 (hopefully!) to upgrade from my D100 - wasn't looking forward to somehow finding 5-GRAND! It'd be nice if there was a guestimated release date.

Do you mean choose when "the camera starts to move" or when "the animation will start"?

Yep, just get the rectangular marquee and make a bunch of boxes and fill them with different shades of grey (or the same shade for all if you don't want variations - but keep them a version of grey because its easier to add color with Hue/Saturation (which is ALSO one of the options when you click on the split B&W circle at the bottom of the layers palette, and Alt-click between that and your boxes for even further editing capabilities). Don't worry about creating 3D objects and importing - this is just simple stuff we're talkig about to keep it fast. The reason I'm big on adjustment layers rather than adjusting the layer itself is because when you change Hue/Saturation (for example), when you go to do it again, you are actually starting from a different color now - with an adjustment layer you can just bring the adj-layer up and do a slight tweak from your ORIGINAL starting point because you wanted it "just a little bit further..." Make sense? I'm a commercial photographer and I do EXTENSIVE Photoshopping to the images, and I need it to go fast, and be able to re-adjust anything later on in case its the wrong color (example - I just had a shoot where they had a pendant they would be selling as earrings later - but they had the wrong color for the shoot - lavander gems, when they'll be selling ruby and sapphire ones - I needed to come up with 2 versions of each stone), or the client wants THIS element lighter, etc. Hope that helps- -Lew ;-)