AXIO LE color shift weirdness

My axio is exhibiting a really strange tick since I upgraded to 3.5 and cs3. Whenever I bring in a piece or footage or a still, the video and still will exhibit a color shift whenever I set the correct aspect ratio! This is maddening, cause it’s making it impossible to do basic stuff without trying to CC hardcore.(and even then it's no garuntee, as the color may shift next time i go back to it)

Here is an example:
I have a talking head shot on a white BG. She is centered, so I use the matrox transform scale effect to move her over to the right a little. Now I export this frame from premiere, take it into photoshop, create a new layer to cover up the black gap left behind by the move. It matches up perfectly. Now I export just this “cover up” layer with an alpha as a PNG, then bring it in. When I put it on the timeline, it appears to be fine.

The minute I set the aspect ration the BG video AND the overlay layer SHIFTS dramaticly in color. Not crazy like inverted color, but to the point where it looks way off from the original. If I make a video with an alpha channel, it does the same thing! The minute you take off the aspect ratio interpretation, the color goes back to being fine, but you now have to render and stretch it out in order to make it fit.

anyone seen anything like this?
thanks
Chad