lubosC + dwight
thanks again for all your help on this one.... it appears to be working correctly now..... even though there appears to be no real discernable difference with the code of all 3 objects... at least in the masking etc that may have affected the renderings
on another note.... it would appear that if a small piece of the image that has an alpha channel touches an edge of the picture plane (say the bottom edge)... then it seems to wrap to the top and create a small dirty fragment up there (see attached image)
any thoughts on this (apart from leaving a 1 pixel gap at the bottom of the image to be used)
thanks again for all