I’m still working on making trees, as I put in a previous post. I’m trying to put in a reference image in Blender (I’m using Blender 2.56). I have the ‘Background Image’ label checked in the Properties Panel. When I choose a file (I’m trying to use JPG or JPEG files), it’s supposed to show the image in the 3D viewer. Unfortunately, no image appears in the viewer. I’m trying to use online video tutorials and a book on Blender, and all the sources show the same way to do it. I don’t know what to do exactly. :o
Just to be sure, you have tried pressing num pad 5 to be sure you are in orthographic instead of perspective, right? I struggled with this for awhile, maybe you have found this too.
I think I did try that. But I still have troubles. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong Craig, so it’s a struggle for me right now too.
There is also the tabs that allow you to specify which view you apply the image to. Also, make sure it loads okay in the uv image editor, as it might sometimes be a matter of the image not being compatible with Blender.
The UV Image Editor - I didn’t even think about that Craig. And because of it, I haven’t tried it. I know there’s more than one way to do things in Blender, and I assume that’s the way it is with images too. I just started trying to put images in Blender today, so I have no experience with putting images in Blender. I’m still tinkering around with things, although I already am getting used to the controls and creating objects. I’ve already messed with creating trees with the program, and I only started the last couple of months - on and off, of course.
It is a wide new world with the new interface, and there are always more than one way to do something - i think the best part of it is always having a new puzzle to figure out 
I do agree with you about the new puzzles. I’m not bored with Blender, that’s for sure!!!
As for the UV Image Editor, I’m looking it up now in the book I have - Blender Foundations by Roland Hess. It says it’s for Blender 2.56, but the image of the tool shelf still shows the ‘Add Tool’ button. I know that button was deleted in 2.56 due to complaints from professionals (I’m trying to remember where I heard or read that).
I set one up for you to check settings. referenceimagesetup.blend (417 KB)
From right orth(numpad 3) you should be able to see and image.
Hopefully I packed the image into the .blend:confused:
This may help:
I’ll give those a try once I get to feeling better. Sprained a muscle in my back about three days ago, and I haven’t been on my computer until now.
I noticed the same issue, until I used a PNG. It seems to dislike other formats, although I’m not positive it was designed that way.
No, works fine for me with .jpg, .tif and .psd files
Which makes sense, since I tried first with a bitmap file. Hah.
I have to thank both Mike and jwatson for this. I found out I needed to tinker with the axis of the background image for awhile. I wanted to load up a picture of cypress trees, and ‘trace’ one of the trees with a bezier curve. I thought a reference image would be good at helping create a realistic-looking tree in Blender. That’s why I’m trying to learn about uploading images to Blender. I’ve already done some tinkering with Bezier curves, so I thought this would be a good way to progress. A two-part tutorial a YouTube used a reference image for making trees from Bezier curves, so I thought I’d give it a try. I feel I’m learning fast since I started at the end of February, but I feel I’m not learning fast enough. I guess I’m expecting too much from myself… :o
Learn something every day, no matter what it is, and you will progress at your own rate. Thing is to progress…
Keep up your spirits BigBoy! Blender is fun. 
I agree Mike!!! I am having fun with Blender!!!
By the way, I’ve taken a screenshot of the Blender project I’ve started. Like I said, I plan to ‘trace’ a Bezier curve over the image of a tree to make a photorealistic tree in Blender. I took a tree made with the online tree generator, the CanTree Generator. It’s a PNG file, and uploaded just nicely. I put the opacity to 1, giving the tree full opacity. Now just to add the Bezier curves over the picture…
I’ve added the screenshot to this post to show how well it turned out. Wish me luck on my project!!!
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I’d thought I’d go ahead and put up a screenshot showing what I meant about ‘tracing’ the reference image with Bezier curves. I’ve learnt this from the first part of a two-part tutorial on YouTube, which describes how to make such trees. If anyone likes, I’d could post both parts of the tutorial here on this post, although the tutorial uses a slightly earlier version of Blender. But I was able to still learn a lot from the tutorial. :yes:
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Looks good, hope this mean you will post in WIP
Right on bigboy, Throw up a link to that video tutorial if you have it handy. Thanks