>NICE ONE CETIN - BUT HOW DO I STOP PAINTSHOP PRO 6 BRIEFLY POPPING UP
>
>THANKS
>DES

If file type is PSP specific I don't know how would you do and never had that situation. If it's BMP you could explicitly set 'class' to paint :

append general myPic from lcPicFile link class 'Paintbrush.Picture'

If it weren't a general field at all I think you wouldn't have that problem at all. An image control would just set picture property and works well with bmp, jpg,gif,cur,ico etc.
Cetin