Your #3 and "stop & post" are on the right track to what I'm trying to do and for the purpose of this example, knowing how you created those would probably go a long way to solving my issue. Thanks for your input on this.

Regarding the import: I mostly always have issues with imports that are really complex and not a PDF. Hopefully this will improve in the future.

Getting some additional blend modes would be great (as would ME learning the ones we already have and using them effectively). I have so many "rote processes" that I'm comfortable with, I've kind of stopped learning some of the deeper sections of the program. Just this week, while messing with this concept, I learned how to do a few extra things along the way from watching a few PS tutorials and applying the concepts to Xara. Texture overlays on an object to make the object look like the texture is part of it (one I should have known but just didn't see it done in the way I found in the tut) and stained glass transparency on a clouds fill over a multi-colored eliptical transparency applied to circles on the underlying layer and how you can create some cool abstract things with extensions of that idea are two examples off the top of my head.

Scott
PS - Angelize: thanks for the "remember me" tip. I'm trying it now, so I'll see if it works...