Hi, have you considered using the alpha channels? If the background is black, it should be relatively easy to inspect them, choose the one offering the best contrast, copy it, and use it to make a selection. Using levels/curves on this copied channel can also help. If there are blemishes/faults inside the bit you want to keep, correct same with one/any of the painting tools. Using an alpha channel to store the masking info gives you the flexibility of going back to do small corrective touch-ups as well as global changes like max/min/blur etc if needed. You've also still got the mask should you need same for other jobs, say drop shadow or stroking. Changing colour mode can sometimes help in tricky situations.

Yes, Jeff, it does work - a few points just in case anyone out there is interested. All as you suggested, but I dialled in 1 frame at 1fps and it only outputted a single frame/tiff as required. Works with all the doc. styles, and just out of interest I wondered what the max. size of file it could cope with was. It didn't like 10000 by 10000 or 9000 by 9000 pixels but it coped with 8000 by 8000 - took about 12 to 15 mins (wasnt timing) on my 800Meg PC. As I couldn't get out once it had started outputting I wasnt keen to find the exact limit! the 244 Mb file took about 4mins to open in Pshp 5.5 (256mb) so I wont be doing this very often. Thanks again - it's nice to know I can get meshes of reasonable size for blending purposes etc...pp

Thanks, Jeff, sounds promising but not something to get my head around when I've had a few ciders - maybe later! - pp

Thanks again, Jim, but no, it's not what I'm after. Using the CAR marquee route ensures that I only throw away the part of the image I don't want (which is fine). The selected part of the image (which is eventually cropped to the same size and proportions) retains all of the original information contained in it. Nothing is invented or more importantly (for me) thrown away. If the eventual crop has more info than necessary it may be useful in the future for producing even larger prints than those done initially. If I'm doing something with a known resolution/printed size requirement then I'll use the system you've just suggested and it works just fine. The CAR problem as I've (perhaps inadequately) described it only occurs in a free ranging situation where there's only 1 file to print, and the resolution can be set accordingly after the required image portion has been selected from the original. - thanks pp

Thanks Jim, but using canvas size presupposes that I know beforehand what position and size (in pixels or linear measure + resolution) the cropped image is going to be as well as the aspect ratio of the 2 sides. I often have to selectively enlarge 6 by 4 photos to fill an A4 sheet (printable area 1.371:1 on my printer). Using the selection marquee on C.A.R. allows me to choose the best crop position and still know that the image is the right shape to fill the paper. I usually scan at 600dpi to ensure that there's always enough info for the final print, after having adjusted resolution to get the correct print size. Personally, I think it's a feature that's missing that should be there, as it's a direct equivalent to cropping a photo using a mask + scalpel.

Create a new layer,fill with black(or white?) and open col range appears to kid the s/w to reset, then go and use it for real again. As i still use 3.05 as well as later versions it might help. I suspect you got sorted a long time ago!

hi again - just been browsing thro a few tutorials on this site and noticed one that might be of use so --tutorials/bryce/the queen by martin murphy didn't study it in depth, but looked interesting - may be worth looking at some of the other bryce/poser tutorials?

I've no experience of creating skin tones other than 'painting' skin around eyes (painter+wacom) but I think I'd be tempted to set up alpha channels for the different bits of the body in p/shop to make reselection easier - it'd also help if you wanted to modify same. As regards the tones themselves, maybe create (on another layer) some clouds using flesh colours that aren't too different from each other and add noise where appropriate. Using selections derived from the channels you should be able to steal suitable chunks of 'cloud' for the bits being worked on. The blur/median/motion blur/finger paint and noise(again!) filters also spring to mind here. If the above pieces were montaged to create a basic background colour for the body it might give you something to work on and improve, rather than trying to get it right first try on a blank canvas. You might also try copying this layer and play around with the blending modes? Modified versions of the original channels would give you access to making selections for shadows/hilights/image manipulation in a controlled manner until you've had a bit more practice - after all the subject matter you've chosen is very difficult! I also suspect painter to be the better choice of s/w Sorry I can't offer specific tips - if I could, my scratchings would be hanging in the Tate or similar.

Depending on the image, a possibility is to check out the colour channels. Choose the one giving the best contrast between the background and the object you want to outline. Copy that to create a new alpha channel. Boost the contrast using levels and fill in relevant areas with black/white. Once happy with the result, copy this again to create a 2nd alpha channel. Use filter / other / max / min to increase the masked/selection area. You can then difference these two alpha channels to create your outline directly or use them for stroking/stroking path purposes. Hope this complements other method - use whatever gives the best? results - creating spare alphas also gives you the chance to experiment with other effects like blurs/grads etc If originally in RGB, and having trouble, try CMYK or LAB to see if they offer any other options.

Have never used an intuos, but have used an A4 ultrapad on an old Mac7500 (OS8.1) with no trouble for about 4 years and have never regretted the purchase. Have recently bought a wintel pc (windows ME) (school compatibility for kids) and had no trouble tranferring the use of the tablet to the pc, as it was the serial version. All I needed to do was download the driver from Wacom, and remove the adaptor originally supplied for the Mac. I suspect (but don't know) that the better specs of newer tablets are irrelevant when they're actually in use - why wonder if it's shade 177 or 409 if it's doing the business? I sometimes think that something smaller would be more convenient - but those thoughts usually arrive when I can't think of what to put on the blank sheet! Personally, I'd try to draw hairy type stuff in painter -