As it happens, I used brute force and figured out the problem.  It took a while, but I was right: Poser "remembered" the window in a place that is one pixel away from being inaccessible on the "wrong" monitor - the secondary rather than the primary.  I dragged the window out and now we are back in business!

Again, it sure would help if Poser had a factory reset.  It's too easy to drag some window into a bad place. 

My friend, I will make sure I copy down your great advice!  I solved my own problem this time after taking a long time to work it out for myself.  Next time, I may not be so lucky.  I will try it out and hopefully it will work as you say!  That would be a big help indeed, and I thank you for looking in on my issue.

Thank you, all of the above works.  A PNG will keep an alpha channel, which means that if there's no info for the BG, it will be transparent.  In Photoshop, it's automatic as well.

I've found that the default lighting that you get when you boot Poser is exactly the light needed to make the pearlescence work.  While other lighting combos can do the trick, the more I fiddle with it the worse it gets.  This even works well with multiple figures and props.  I have to keep the scene in Smooth Shaded Preview, though otherwise the lighting falls apart mightily in other formats.  That's why I like Smooth Shading so much: you immediately get the best sense of the contours of the models without having to try out exotic lights.  This makes them powerfully useful as visual reference objects in greyscale, not at all useful as final renders if you want colour or to see eyeballs. 

I'm pretty sure I've looked at every screen and control Poser has to offer, but for whatever reason I completely blanked on the Preview Render window.  I wish I asked this question months or even years ago, I could have saved myself a bucket of trouble.  In gratitude, I promise to name my next child after you.  I doubt my wife will go for Red Phantom Hborre Twelvefield, but I do have some time to get her to see my side of things.  More time, now that I have this new trick!

Okay, now I've had a little time to work the dials. I've installed everything else without issues. While I have your attention, I have to say I am most impressed with the model and especially how LOGICALLY the controls are laid out! It's a treat to set up the basic position and then pick the body part and have its dials right there ready to use, and also have many well-designed handles. Although there is a lot of pose detail, which I appreciate, it's remarkably easy to strike the pose and then dial in the details. I had no idea that I could use Poser and not fight with the UI at every turn. Here's hoping there will be a male version of this model in the future!

I used the Unzip From Archive utility in Poser. Strange that it didn't give me those files. I found them in the download package as you suggest and was able to put them in manually. Thank you for the help and the quick reply!

For anyone who is facing this issue and reading this: I kept missing that the prompt asked for both the new and the old password. Thanks for the help!