Dear Friend: Is there a magazine issue with a free old version of Vue? Thanks. Sincerely, Fidelity2.

There was, hm, 3D World magazine?? had Vue3 or 4, a LONG time ago. Sorry not gonna look through my huge CD collection to check.

if oyu need a free vue version, just download the PLE demo version from E-on? :)

The one app I still use I got as a freebie, is Particle Illusion 2 SE, got on Creative Arts magazine, iirc, good few years ago.

particle illusion...can you get an image out greater then 640x480 with that version????

Dave-So,
yes and no.
You can ONLY export an image the same size as the stage in Particle Illusion 2 SE And I think in v3 non Pro ?

So what I do is chop the image up in PaintShopPro (or Photoshop), to a manageable size with thr area I want the effect on, save out that section as a new bitmap.

Export that into Particle Illusion 2 SE as background, on my widescreen monitor I can make the "stage" pretty big.
Thus I can do an effect, save out as another bitmap.
Import that into PaintShopPro (or Photoshop), put it on top of the original image, align, and merge.

So now I have an image with the special effect on.
That's how I did this pic:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1744712

CAVEAT!
note to beware of putting effects near the borders of the cut oue sections, some have very large "flares", lens glows etc, and may leave a noticeable faint line at the edge if the effect overlaps the cut, at all.

great idea :)
I'll give that a try.
The program does a lot of stuff..I also downloaded a bunch of effects from the site, but the saved image size always left me hanging...way too small.