Well I'll be..........! Never realized there was a dialogue window available to use with the transparency tool. That's pretty cool. Everytime I learn something new I wonder what else I'm not aware of. Thanks for posting. - Scotty
Thanks very much for all your help. I managed to achieve what i needed shortly after posting by putting the photos in photopaint with no background and then erasing the edges with the feather turned up to 100.
I'll have a play with your ideas now and see what happens.
Thanks again.
Andy.
If the image is a bitmap, why not use the vignette effect?
goto Effects>Creative>Vignette then in the dialog box define the shape, and adjust the offset anf fade sliders to suit.
Bern.
Another thing you can do is invert the transparency node or change both node color, if it is black change it to white and the white to black.