Thank you both for your help.  I've printed out the keyboard short cuts for reference and checked the "Edge and Face Tools" link which was very helpful.  Once I find the common equivalent tools in Blender that I am used to in Max I will feel more comfortable. 

Thanks bobby, beat me to the post.

Thank you both for the GIMP tip.  I tried GIMP many years ago and at that time it required a hard drive, root directory installation which would not have helped my situation but on your suggestion I just had another look at it.  After a bit of a search I found a portable version of GIMP that goes through an installation process but installs onto a flash drive.  Just finished trying it out and it worked on the company computer without a hitch, so thanks again for your help.

If anyone else is interested this is where my search led me.  

http://portableapps.com/suite

This site has portable versions of free, open source programs under the General Public License.

You probably know more about copyright law than I do given your studies/thesis.  I am not a lawyer, I  am only offering my opinions based on my reading.   In cases other than a photo of an existing copyright protected piece of art the "content" of a photograph is not really relevant insofar as being judged a "work of art".  The copyright law is there to protect the rights of the photographer to the image captured.  A photographer who captures the assassination of a political figure, the knockout punch in a historic boxing match or the latest escapades of Paris Hilton has rights to the image.  None of these would count as a work of art.  Art critics have declared a piece of art a work of genius only to find it was painted by a chimpanzee so art is completely subjective but none of that changes the right to copyright protection.  Although I don't know if a chimp can own the rights to its painting:)

In your example of the photos of the works of art, I would suggest that it is not the fact that it was a photograph but that the "image" did not contain any originality.  If I painted the Mona Lisa as a reproduction then I would expect that the ruling would have been the same.

There is nothing wrong in using photos as inspiration but in relation to copyright infringement I don't think that it matters the "medium" if the image is recreated/repainted/reproduced so that it looks like the original.  Many matte paintings that are used in movies begin as a photo that gets manipulated, painted over, then has additional cgi elements and light effects added in.  At certain stages of the matte the original source material may still be recognizable but in the end the image bears no resemblance to the source images.

The question you have to ask yourself is if someone looked on the source/reference photo and your painting do they see substantial similarities between the two images?

Vintorix,

What I was trying to show was that it is not the method or the medium but the similarity with the original work that is important.

Attached Link: Derivative Works

I posted a thread in the Copyright Laws and Ethical Standards forum here at Renderosity which discussed a court case very similar to the example you described.  

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2758488

The artslaw article refered to in my thread involved the recreation of a photograph into a painting and a photograph into a sculpture.  Direct link to this article is at the head of this post (Derivative Works).

dreamer101 is correct.  I just tried what he suggested and the text size is indeed different even thought the point size is the same.

Does rasterizing the text as part of your action make a difference?

What is the file extension on the file you are trying to open in Photoshop.  All the texture map files that are used in the MAT pose are located in Posers texture folder  (Runtime>Textures>{Product or Vendors Name}).  These files are generally in .jpg or .tif format which Photoshop will open.

Attached Link: Colourjack

Credit for the find goes to EagleWing1000.  It is an online colour wheel/picker/palette tool that may be just what your looking for.

Hey, nice find.
This type of tool is useful in graphic design projects for working out colour schemes and palettes.

Thanks for posting.

I'm still using CS2.  Don't know if the tool has been moved or removed in CS4.

tess_linn,

To line up your two images as I described in my last post hold down the shift key as you drag one image onto the other, not the ctrl key as I  wrote.  I didn't have Photoshop open when I replied and got the two keys mixed up.  Also if you aren't familiar with the Extract tool yet (Filter>Extract) read up on it as it is a good selection tool that will help with cutting your images up, especially the flats image.

tess_linn,

I  now see that this post relates to your other "Challenge" post.  The image you posted above of your layers in photoshop was not large enough to see detail and it looked to me like your layer titled 'Original' was a texture template that would have been created from UV mapping your 3d model.  Having a layer titled BumpMap also indicated this.  Thats why I gave a workflow suggestion as I thought it may be helpful.   I can now see that it is actually parts of your 3d house that you have selected out of your rendering.   My suggestion to create a flats layer was to assist in painting a texture template to apply to the 3d house within your 3d program before rendering.  If you are working on the final rendered image of your house then photoshop has good selection tools to extract exactly what parts you want to separate onto different layers.

If you did want to try the method you mention in point 1. of your post above I would suggest that you render out of your 3d program two images.  One with the textures such as roof tiles, brickwork etc applied and the second one with the flat colours for easy selection in photoshop.  Just make sure that for the flat colour rendering you turn shadows off otherwise this would create shading in your house parts making selections with the magic wand harder.   So long as you don't move your camera between renderings you can then combine both renderings into the one .psd file.  To combine the renderings open both in photoshop.  Press ctrl+a to select the whole of one image then V to select the move tool.  Then hold down the ctrl key as you drag the selected image onto the other one.  This will place the dragged image exactly in the center of the second one so that selections you make on the flat colour layer match the textured layer.

Looking at your image of your layers it looks to me like you are wanting to create your own texture map for a 3d model.  If that is the case then here is how I do it.

Firstly before you do anything else duplicate your original layer then turn its visibility off.  This preserves your original image so you can return to it if you mess things up.

I then make a 'flats' layer which is a flat coloured layer that allows you to make instant selections with the magic wand of any of the parts of the texture map.  I do this by using the magic wand and clicking on the white part of the copy original texture map and then inversing the selection.  I then create a new layer (shift+ctrl+n).  With the selection still active I paint a flat coloured layer on the whole selection.  This now becomes my selection 'template' for all texturing work.  I then move this layer below the copy original.

Next using the magic wand on the texture template I select the part of the map that I am going to work on.  I then make a new layer from this selection (shift+cntrl+n).  I then paint on this layer.  Any corrections that need to be made to levels, clour balance, contrast/brightness etc are then done with an adjustment layer>clipping mask.

Keep repeating the above instructions for any other changes to the copy original texture map using the selection template for quick selections.

A bump map needs to be saved out as a separate image file if it is to be used in something like Poser.  Your bump map only needs to be in grayscale to get the high/low information.  I usually create the bump map exactly the same way as described above using the selection template, then turn off the visibility of all other layers when it comes time to save it out to a new file.

In dreamer101 and Quests post above the Layer via Cut and the shortcut cntrl+j are the same thing.  The reason that I don't generally use this method is that if you make a selection on your original image and cut this selection to a new layer and only partially paint on this new selection layer then if you make any level, curve, colour balance etc changes to your original image then the un-painted part on your new layer will not reflect those changes.  Correcting this by erasing can be difficult if you used a soft brush in your texture painting.

These tips work for me, others will have their own way of doing things.  Try the suggestions of the other responders here and find the one that best suits your needs for your current project.