Not sure if I fully understand what your after,but I,ll try to go through it in relation to the calender contest and asume thats what your after. 1)Yes thats all you need to do to convert from RGB to CMYK.If you go to the channels pallete you will see the channels change before and after you convert. 2)The reason that I mentioned saving in a tiff format during the earlier CMYK post was in relation to rendering images in Poser then bringing them into Photoshop for post production.The only advantage of rendering as a tiff is that when you bring it into Photoshop you will find that it has saved the file with four channels Red,Green,Blue and a channel called Alpha1.If you go to "load selection" and choose "Alpha1" from the drop down menu,you will find that your poser figure is perfectly selected so that you can remove it from the background for post production. 3)If you have poser4 and have installed one of the patches (ie 4.2)you can now render the image at any dpi you request (such as 300) up to the Poser maximum pixel size.However dpi is only relivant if you are measuring the final image in terms of print size only(ie 10"x8").If you are using pixel dimentions for the size of an image then 800 pixels by 600pixels is that size irrelivant of the dpi you choose.The dpi vrs print,pixel size really needs an answer on its own,if anyone wants to contribute.

Just checked it out and all the tutorials do seem free.This is a major resourse.They seem to have collated every metalic tip & technique you could want.Thanks for the link I,ve added it to my favorites.

Prehaps the best free city model I have seen is under "environments" at "www.3dcafe.com,but I,m not sure what file format it is.

http://www.figma.com/drawing/howto/dbryan/db_color_07.htm The above url should take you to a starfield tutorial on a site called "the drawing board".

Hey Jim!That status bar tip is totaly new to me.Thank you.Thats the joy of sites like this there is always something new to learn.

Josiapugh.Unless you are instructing your printer to reduce the image what Jim and Spanfarkle have said should solve your problem.Make sure that when you look at image size you check not just the dpi but the size in inches of your image.An image can be 800x600 pixels at 300dpi and fill up your whole screen but still only be like 1"x1" print size. I may be wrong but you seem from the questions you,ve posted to be new to photoshop but keen to learn.Can I direct you to a tutorials site that covers just about every level.I find if you work your way through a few tutorials you pick up a great deal of peripheral information that comes in handy for other projects.Thats how I started out and I found it more usefull than trying to learn in a kind of hit & miss fashion. http://graphicssoft.about.com/compute/graphicssoft/msubmenu1.htm?once=true& I know its a long,long url but just copy & paste it into your address line.

Jims correct on both counts CMYK does increase file size, mainly due to the fact that you have an extra channel in CMYK mode.It is an important point that he raises,especially for Poser post production people as if you have saved the Poser file as a Tiff you already have an extra channel where the mask has saved as an Alpha channel.This means your starting to get into some very large file sizes and if you were to:- for example,be entering the Zygote Calender contest where the final image is going to be a CMYK 11" x 8.5" image at 300dpi it starts to become almost unworkable on a smaller machine. Another disadvantage is that a number of the photoshop filters only work in RGB mode. I sometimes do work on video covers that are to be printed and to be honest all I do is work in RGB mode with the CMYK preview switched on,to give me a better idea of the final image and keep in mind the fact that it will look a little duller without the screen light behind it.When I,m finished I convert it to CMYK and hope for the best.So far I,ve got away with it.(touch wood)

RGB does stand for Red,Green Blue but they are not regarded as "print" colours when used in Photoshop.In photoshop RGB and CMYK are used to define two different colour systems, Additive & Subtractive.Additive is a way we see colour with direct light,such as the colour on a tv screen .Its called additive because when you add all the colours in light together to get white.Subtractive is the colour system used not only in printing,but also in traditional painting where the more colours(pigments) you have the closer you get to black, hence the name as you subtract colours to get white. Printing uses the subtractive system and uses the four coloured inks Cyan,Magenta,Yellow and Black..(k for black comes from the old printing term of Key or Keyline to describe the black plate.) Moniters and TV,s use the Additive system ,combining three coloured lights red,green and blue.Because of factors such as luminosity not all colours can translate from RGB to CMYK.This is why those amazing light effects on the computer screen just look like washed out paper when printed. So if your work is intended for onscreen viewing just stick to RGB,but if you intend to print it you should work either in CMYK or at least with the CMYK preview on to avoid disapointment.

I agree with you Liz as to which Lara I prefer,There is a W.I.P.comic page up in the gallery (Don,t ask me how it got there it wasn,t intended to be published yet) using a slightly morphed poser figure with the Lara hair and I think it looks much better. It,s just that those particular renders look as if I have the real model of her and you would not believe the amount of e-mail requests I get for it.I keep having to explain how it,s done and it would be easier if I could post a model somewhere. Thanks for your interest anyway.

http://www.switch.to/batman The Url in the above posting appears not to work.Please try this one.

If anyone is interested, and can do it. I have an excellent Lara Croft head and pony tale created in 3d Max that would look fantastic attached properly to a poser body.It would also need some facial morphs to change expressions but it really is very close to the Eidos one..At the moment I,ve done a couple of test renders by taking a poser figure (minus head) into max then just sitting the head on it and texturing the whole thing, as I,m not up on how to replace a poser head. If anyone is interested and wants to take a look at the head, the test renders are at www.switch to/batman under DLM.They are the last three pictures on that page bottom row right. PLEASE BE WARNED-This is a "nuderaider" site & not to everyones cup of tea & some of the other images on the site would fit nicely on Renderotica.Adults only please.

www.eyeball-design.com/page03.htm has some good Poser Tutorials on creating 3d style interface components.You might be able to adapt some of the tutorials to suite your final design.(I,ve just recommended this site in the reply below.I have nothing to do with it honest! it just happens to fit the stuff your both looking for.)

Select your area.Go Filters-noise-add noise.(Setting about 60.Have Uniform and Monochrome checked).Then go Filters-Blur-Motion Blur( angle set at 0 and distance about 60.).Then go Filters again,Others-Emboss(Angle about 90 or -90 and height to suit yourself.) You should now have the Brushed Metal Texture.You can brighten it up with Curves/Contrast,Brightness or add colour on another layer and experiment with the blending modes. Check out www.eyeball-design.com/page03.htm it has a series of tutorials that cover most of the component parts you could use to make an almost identical interface, including a brushed metal one.

While your working with the dodge and burn tool you can alter it as you go over partucular areas of the texture by using the shortcuts. Alt+shift+w=Shadows Alt+shift+v=Midtones Alt+shift+z=Highlights This gives a bit more variation in the shading. I think one of the main problems is that texture fills dont follow the contours of the object and so look a bit false from the outset. There is a very good artist at the below link who uses a kind of combination of Dodge,Burn & Smudge to amazing effect, You may want to check him out if you havn,t already seen his site.He has a tutorial up. http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/

Go to the Selections menu and chose "deselect" in Photoshop 5 or higher and I believe "none" in lower versions,or use the short cut keys. "Control + D" on the Pc,not sure about the Mac,but I think it,s similar "Command + D".Something like that. By the way the moving border around selections is often refered to as "marching ants".Which I think is a great descriptive term.