>>Is there any function to call to garbagecollect this, or a way to flush the buffers and whatever iPicture uses? Or should I be better off using plain fox-native image objects?
>
>You could try CLEAR RESOURCES. I don't know if VFPX LOADPICTURE() will respond to that, though.

It seems the combination of loadpicture() inside getInterface() and/or returning an iPicture object from a function was the cause.

Now I've put a simple image object on the form(s), and filling it with an object I got from loadpicture() (still need to check if it's null, sometimes it is)...

loPic=LoadPicture(lcFullp)
lofrm.img.pictureval=lopic

...and there seems to be no leak. I'm still creating an iPicture object inside the routine which gets/saves the dimensions of the picture, but it seems to do no harm as long as it isn't passed into or from a method. I wonder what would happen if I set it as a property of some global object...

Well, never mind.

And, ah, the loFrm.img.picture=lcFullp still works, but... in many cases I'm getting fewer bitplanes - the rendering of the image is rather ugly and looks like it's reverting to 16 or 64 or 256 colors. So loadpicture()... which works.