Whats the preferred method for working on the gauge bmp's in Pshop please?Should these be changed to .psd and then back to .bmp or do the work in bmp? Also is it ok to change format to rgb from indexed color and change back to indexed color before saving? Some of the gauges have some transparency and I have to modify the main.bmp with with sort of a mask,,rgb 1,1,1. Others I can place on a light background with no probs.ThanksJohn

By all means, take the fullest advantage of the power in the program! Use only RGB and work with layers as much as possible. You should always save your 'master art' in unflattened, .psd format.When you're ready to export to .bmp, simply flatten the layers and then convert to indexed, 8 bit format.In fact, I do all my gauge work at 400% scale so I can do finer detail, then resize to what I need, flatten, convert to indexed 8 bit, etc.

Thanks for the reply Bill. Thats pretty much what I've been doing,just one gauge somehow got corrupted,maybe something to do with the masking,,I.E. the bezel lost some of the mask and my light colored panel showed through some parts. I know there is a reason the main.bmp has masking for most gauges I just dont understand it. Hehe.JohnPS. I've been retired for three years now and this sim is sure filling in the time for me.