I am getting a pixel outline from my color keying color on my icons as I blit them. Its been awhile since I tackled this problem and I forgot how I solved it, if I even solved it to my satisfaction I create the icon in PSP, with the icon and the background layers seperate, so when I use effects it should be clean. Somehow when I save the file into bmp format, some of the pixels surrounding the icon change color. This is frustrating. Is this just a limitation in bitmaps, or I am doing something wrong?

"is this just the limitations of bitmaps? or am i doing something wrong"... well, not to be blunt, but both are correct ^_^. when you save as a bmp, or just about any valid file format usable for games, you have to flatten your layers to 1 image... when youre using all that crazy effects that you do with filters or whatever (which, i must say, or a 16x16 or 32x32 icon its a bit overkill to be using filters...) the pixels with different opacity will just merge to shade together with the backdrop (assuming its a single color background being used for transparency, lets say, 255,0,255?). This is known as "bleeding" (unofficially). This is also very bad, ive seen it on professional icons before, and it cracks me up each time i see it. Basically the image you want to be visible will antialias (AA) to blend into the background color... so therefore it no longer stores the rbg values 255,0,255... hence, they might look like they are all pink on the flattened layer, but when you try to apply the transparency, youll quickly see that youll have pinkish blots around your image... quick (and obvious solution)... zoom in there, icons arent huge, are they? and go ahead and pixel over those little pink blobs manually... Theres a technique i like to call reverse AA, which instead of blending from the object color to the background color, you purposefully blend the primary layer (object of desire) into a darker outline, getting progressively darker until it forms a black perimiter border around your image instead of acquiring those extraneous ugly pixels that are now plaguing your current icon. if you have no idea wha tim saying, im sorry, i havent slept in a while, it might not make much sense