yes i know. i was just telling you where i had looked before you posted your msg. ....as in so you or anyone else didnt think i was being lazy and not actually searching. :)

i c ....well maybe i'll check those out a bit more. I liked the magnetic one, but it still would bleed into the dog in certain areas. ....that was a pain.

Well, I've read through all your suggestions. I am now messing a bit with knockout 2(since i already had it)but it isnt working as easily as they make it look on the flash video ...im not surprised :) So the specific method that i think I want to go with is the Extract tool in PS. A step-by-step would be awesome retrocity. And just so you know, the pic I'm currently dealing with is a dog with long hair and his background has many different colors in it. Thanx

Thanx guys. I'll try all the suggestions. And thanx Guitta, I did go through the tut area, and your site, but didnt see one for footprints. I'll look now in the HOW DO I section.

no....he's a hover-dog. He just planted himself there. :p Actually I dont know how to do footsteps. :)

Sorry. I messed up in the 1st reply. Ive just deleted it from my end but I dont know if that deletes it so knowone can see it. (hopefully it did) Ill start over. I want to make the alpha plane look more like materials in Vue, as in their 'not so photoish look'. If you look at the dog in my pic you can see that he still looks like a photo. I would like the alpha plane(no matter what it was)to blend in a bit more so that it doesnt look out of place with everything else in the render.

Yes, that worked. As I has said, I did try all of the lights, but what I hadnt done was lower them down to ground level. Once i did that it lit up the alpha plane very well without affecting the shadowing. Thanx again :)

thanx. ill try that. :)