thanks for your help guys, it is greatly appreciated.

yeah i agree, when i can find a black and white it will be easier to work with. but there are times i can not find a B&W and have to use a color image

what about your spline parameters, i have been setting the numbers to the lowest possible. am i wrong in thinking that?

so i can post images in X5 with no issues. the only thing i am not happy with is after i import the image in, i have to retrace the image because all of my lines are going to be squiggly and nasty. the only thing i can figure is that when i go to import it my parameters are not set just right. any help would be greratly appreciated.