Here I am with another problem ( a common one I bet). I down loaded a polished aluminum repaint of the AA 747. I wanted to add a Lady friends name to the tail and take a snapshot of it and send it to her for fun.I saved a copy of the bmps into a folder named texture.Lynne,and modified the AC Cfg..Next,I opened the BMP up with DXT from MW graphics,and sent it to Photoshop.Made a layer,placed her name on it,flattened the image and saved it.I went back to DXT and 'reload the image'.The ac showed up in FS9 as a blue paint scheme.No aluminum finish.I dont know what Alpha channel is,but I copied the aluminum repaint bmp and replaced my botched bmp with it,redid the BMP and this time,imported the Alpha from the original aluminum repaint.Still nothing.I tried saving in several formats,but nothing different.Where am I going wrong? Thanx folks // stephan  'Altitude With Attitude !  8-)

Okay, I'm not quite sure what you said in the last two sentences, but, here you go on shinies with alpha channels. ;)

So you have the one you want it to look like with her name on the tail, right?  So that's your base image.
Open the original in DXTbmp, and go to Alpha / Export Alpha Channel, and save the image somewhere.  This is your alpha channel.  It's what makes the aircraft reflective and shiny.
Open your base image with the name on the tail.  Go to Alpha / Import Alpha Channel, and select the alpha channel you exported from the original.
Then save the image as an Extended Bitmap / DXT3.  This is your completed image.
Make a copy of the original texture folder, and rename it something like texture.name
Then replace the original image with your new completed image.
Put the new texture folder in the aircraft's folder, and add a correct new section in the aircraft.cfg.
Then, fly! :)

Thank you Major,Sir.I have played with this problem for some time.I will give your solution a try,and see what happens.I will reply with the results in a day or two.I do thank you for your time.I dont fly on the net.If I did,I'd ask the designers for permission to alter their paint jobs.I believe that is protocol.But since I'm the only one that see's them,I try different schemes.Again,thanks so very much,and I'll let you know how it goes. / stephan  "Altitude With Attitude!  8-)

Good morning Major Sir. I followed your instructions for the shiney finish and it worked beautifully! It was very simple to do,which made it that much more easy to accomplish.Thanks so much for the help! Really! I fought that problem for quite some time.Finally gave up.I hate to be beat at anything,but that one really stumped me since I didnt understand the art jargon.I have Gmax and dont fool with that.Seems like one needs to understand aerodynamics and related matters to even begin to make a worthwhile plane.But thats another matter.So thanks again Sir for the much valued help on this long time problem! /stephan "Altitude With Attitude!"   8-)

Major Sir.The line under your name says "I like repainting aircraft".Hopefully you dont mind answering a brief question,and,that being, can one repaint most ac to a polished aluminum/chrome just by the modifying the texture bmps',or do you need to adjust something in the mdl file (which is forbidden territory and inaccessable)?{hope I spelled that correctly} Thanks for any input.  /stephan  "Altitude With Attitude!"   8-)