Way to reduce flicker on tab changes w/background image?

[jdrudolp]

Hello -

I have been working on a Windows App with three tabs in it (using the tabControl control). I have placed between 15 and 20 objects on each tab (labels, buttons, dropdowns, etc.) and made all of the backrounds transparent. Then I put a different image as the background of each tab, which creates this sort of watermark effect, which I really like. Unfortunately, when you swtich back and forth between the tabs in the .exe, it takes a few seconds each time to redraw all of the GUI objects, which looks pretty bad.

Does anyone have a solution for this problem? A way to draw the tab completely before displaying it? Background image as a GDI+ object? Double buffering?

Thanks,
jdrudolp