thanks guys! :) Pascale...no, it's not your monitor. those lines are there. i think it's called banding. anyway, it wasn't real noticeable in the high resolution image, but when i resized it, i noticed it. i tried resizing in different ways, but i could still see it. then kemal and i worked on it and tried several different things. we applied a gausian blur of 100 to the background layer (where the light is) but the it was still there. we tried a bunch of stuff, but no matter what we did it nothing got rid of it. anyway, i think it's kinda cool looking and decided to keep it the way it was...well maybe not!! LOL! :) to me...it looks like how i imagine sound being amplified. you guys think it's distracting??? perhaps i'm just being my silly self??? :) haha. i'm sure i am!!! :) thanks a bunch guys for your input. :)