I looked up the highlights instructions with the example that has the red & white checkerboard and the gradient... I followed it's example letter for letter... and I got a strange result.When I open the resultant bmp with Gimp (a freeware type of PS or PSP) it looks great! The results are exactly what I expected and intended.But when I use it in FS9 or look at it in Imagetool, it's totally transparent. When I look at it with Irfan's Iview, the alpha is ignored and I see the original pre-alpha image in 100% opacity.Now, Irfan's Iview I can understand... it can't handle transparent bmp's. But that only prooves that the base image is still there.But why are imagetool and FS9 interperting the alpha data differently than my image editor (Gimp), especially when imagetool was used to create the alpha gradient in the first place?The operation worked... when I view it in the editor it looks perfect. What I don't understand is why it's displaying improperly in FS9 and imagetool.Thanks,Scott / Vorlin

I have no idea either. I don't use Imagetool at all, preferring DXTBMP for my work...I've also never tried what you're attempting either... ;)