Thanks for looking. I have stopped using the reference and I am now returning the vars by value. My true error was in failing to send the proper image to the subroutine. This obvously returned values that did not match the image I was maniplating. Since the original subroutine returned references I thought I might have introduced an error when I changed it. I tried using the references to check this and got sidetracked.

Just why $$var gave me SCALAR(0xed880) instead of the value located at \$var I don't know but since the new structure works I'll come back to that issue later.

Thanks and Thanks again to all
NereDoWell