Question

Can anyone tell me if its possible to make a glow filter effect around ONLY the image in a loaded transparent PNG?

Answer 1

Yes. Simply apply a filter to the Loader and it will respect the images alpha channel.

var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.load(new URLRequest("image.png"));
loader.filters = [ new GlowFilter(0xff0000) ];
addChild(loader);