I meant the metal pole on the right, not the left.. my bad. I also realise now you were just doing a quick and dirty example. I must admit I only read your technique the second time I came to this thread and I'm still wondering why you're using the gradient tool. The way I'd do it is place the leaves layer on top (since it's the foreground) and then use the magic wand to select the sky. Optionally go into quickmask mode to gaussion blur the selection for a few pixels (how much depending on the resolution). Then back in regular mode press delete to erase the sky in the leaves layer. Presto, the seagull behind the leaves. I did the following on about 2 minutes: Note I also blurred the leaves just a tad for realism. Not posting this to put you down, just offering my observations and (hopefully) helpfull info :) AARGH.. wth is wrong with rendo.. I press post and get the forum listing.. luckily I c/p-ed this post beforehand

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