For postworking you will need drawing tools, layers, layermasks and layermodes. All of these are available in PS Elements. It is only with clipping groups that PS E does not handle - but you do not need those. And you need the big brother for CMYK: if you bring your work to a quality printer and printing multiple copies. But that is not needed for you, I guess

If you have the money, go buy Photoshop. But I doubt it that you really gain that much from using the big one, since all you need is in Elements. You also migh get frustrated because the menus and other things are in different places in Photoshop.

Take the time to get a Photoshop demo. You will have 30 days to decide whether or not it is worth the money. (Or use that money to buy a Wacom tablet....?)
Remember that students can get PS legally for a lower price. All rules can be found on the Adobe website.

Jacqueline

When you really get serious about this - you will have to buy hardware to get a good colour callibration. These things are attached to the screen and will help you callibrate the monitor. Am saving up for one myself too.
Jacqueline

This technique is called 'high key image'  and most of the work is done when shooting the photograph: loads of light. The bright colours in the lips are later adjusted in Photoshop.
Jacqueline

On the website of 3dtotal.com, go to the shop and browse for an ebook called 'Elements V1' and there is also a second edition.
These ebooks are of the same quality like ImagineFX but with a better price.
On http://www.2dartistmag.com/3dtotal/  you will find ebooks for 2D too - there are Lite versions free for download so you can check out the issue before buying them. With a price tag of 4.50 dollar, it is a steal!

Also, do a search on Deviantart for more free tutorials on digital painting...
Have fun!
Jacqueline

If you are good in drawing, you could start with a render of a human body from Poser or the free DAZ programs (both 3D). Export the drawing to Photoshop and then draw the dress over this image.

Wacom tablets are great to work with - it will feel more like pen or pencil - so much easier than using a mouse, which is so unnatural.
You do not need a large one to get started.

I am using a very old Wacom tablet, it is about 12 or 13 years old now and still working well.
The only drawback from being so old is that no new drivers are written for like Vista and no it does not support pressure sensitivity anymore.
Jacqueline

Don't underestimate the power of the Layer Styles! With these you can add glass, metal, marble effects to anything. Also there are loads of tutorials about these effects on the Internet - do a search for it on Google and you will have fun for hours!

Have the same problem as you have. The solution is to delete the .prv file in the folder. It works then well. I guess that a new preview file is build then.

I also tried copying the content CD to the hard disk, but the items would not load! There was the ~~ mark as mentioned above - but these were of the items that were on the disks.

Tried loading an object from the CD and then select the option to have all the items in that collection to be  copied to the folder. But that does not work either.
Am still messing with this part of Vue.

Do you also work with Vista? Have loads of other problems as well with Vue....

Jacqueline

Great work - looks I've got a whole lot to learn before I get this far...

Thankx for all the help. I found the manual of Bryce 5, but then this morning I tried advice from ysvry and found the right file on the disk. (I was looking in the Windows directory... the manual was one level up, ahum). Danamo, thank you for your offer! Very nice of you. Great that this forum is so alive and active. I am also trying to learn Amapi 6 but there is less material, tutorials and activity than here. Thanks again, Jacqueline

Thank you RDS! Tried it with your instructions and it worked quite well. My first material is in the software. Now it is time to learn what the best pictures are and the best size to use. Any ideas for that - or is it just trial and error? Next will be the colormaps... This is fun!

It is not in the Vue 2 manual. There isn't even a word about the import of .bmp files. But I had found some tutorials that showed me how to do it. I would like to learn to make/import the basic .mat (and .clr) materials so that there is a greater choice for me. On the web I found someone who had these for downloads - but because of the copyright issue I'd rather try for myself.