I am looking to do the same thing, but ended up playing with transparent gradient fills using different shapes such as elipses. Importing an image as GIF, I don't believe can handle more than one transparrent colour, for a nice smooth edge. Photoshop 5.5 can handle the new PNG graphics format, but may not be supported by Flash yet.<br><br>Let me know if you find a way to import an image and use it as a shaded mask.<br><br>George<br><A HREF="mailto:GS@infosynergy.com.au">GS@infosynergy.com.au</A>