Would someone please be kind enough to walk me through the process of creating an animation file that I can do post work on? Do I render as images or avi files in setup? I guess I render as uncompressed if it is an avi file. How do I import an avi type file frame into Photoshop? I guess I use a third party compression after post. Ive seen VitualDub mentioned. Then that allows me to load it into my editing program? Im starting with Pinnacle Studio 7 to learn basic editing. Im probably way off base because I dont have a clue. Any advise would be appreciated. Regards Pinto

Render to a series of image files whenever possible. I recommend .tga files, as they are cross platform, can contain alpha channels, and do not discard information like lossy formats do. .bmp files are also good, if you are on a Windows system and do not need alpha channels. This way, you do not lose work when a render crashes late into an animation (and believe me, such things happen all too often). Additionally, the image files can then be easily loaded and tweaked in Photoshop if you like. Image sequences can also be loaded directly into compositing programs like After Effects, or video editors like Premiere, and then output as various video formats like .avi, .mpeg, .mov, etc., using a variety of codecs. I am not familiar with Pinnacle Studio 7, so I can't tell you anything about it's capabilities in this regard. I hope this helps you out a bit.

MephistoLV, Thank you for the response. So I just load the stills sequentially in the editor. What about any need for compression programs prior to the edit? Thanks Pinto

If you are using a program like the ones I mentioned, then you don't need to compress anything prior to editing. You simply load the image sequence and the editor will play the sequence as though it were a video, allowing you to make edits like you would with any piece of video. This is subject to the limits of your hardware of course, as are all things. You will want a fast hard drive, fast processor, lots of RAM, and a good graphics card. If the hardware is having trouble with the uncompressed image sequence, then you can create low res proxies (like .jpg stills or low res movie files) to use in the editing and then swap back to the uncompressed images when you are ready to do your final output. If your video editor doesn't support image sequences, then you will need something to turn the stills into a video file before loading it into the editor. If you have to do this, be very careful with the compression that you use, because once you have finished your editing and output your final video file, you may end up with double compression artifacts due to the images having been compressed twice instead of once.

MephistoLV, Thank you for your help. Regards Pinto