How do you add a background image as reference for a character model if you don’t have Photoshop?
You shouldn’t need Photoshop to add a reference image to a window - all you need is an image in a format that Blender will read (png, jpg, tga)
Go to the ‘View’ menu in the window you want to add the image to, then ‘Background image’. Click on ‘Use background image’ then on the icon marked ‘Image’ - Navigate to your desired image, click on ‘Select Image’ and there you go.
If your problem is that the image is in Photoshop format you will need something that will let you convert it to an image format that Blender can read (GraphicConverter on the Mac works nicely last time I tried it).
If you want something to create images to use as reference, try ‘The Gimp’. (Find either on a search engine).
Setanta
You dont need photoshop to have a background image (not sure 100% what you ment here).
To have an image to model against:
For the model window that you want the image in:
- click on the view menu
background image…
a little transpearant dialogue box shoud pop up. - select “use background image”
- and then a little folder shows, click on this and select an image from the file dialogue
- make sure you dont have a texture selected or else it wont work.
Yeah, this should be interesting… how do you add a background image using Photoshop? 
LoL
I’m glad you asked this question. I’ve been trying to figure this out for a while. If not correct, you used to hit shift+F7 to accomplish this. Doesn’t work anymore. So thanks. I was about to ask this question myself.
Thanks,
Wriker