Hello my firned.. i can tell that adobe photoshop cs2 is totally differnt then 7.0 and cs1 eh! oh well.. looks like to me that you duplicated the layer and the you did sit the top one either to multiply and or overlay.. if the original is the original as i can see.. that means what i mentioned above.. try it again and tell me.. oh! i can see that you added after that some sharpen to the image.. So here is my suggestion.. 1- Open the original nuder your CS2 2- Click Ctrl + J to Duplicate the layer 3- Choose the top layer from your layer window on the right 4- Set the layer option in the same window to MULTIPLY If not.. Then trey the OVERLAY. 5- Goto Filter and add some sharpen image onece.. 6- I guess you know how to make that simple frame eh! And you are all done unless you played with the levels as well.. You can find that under the image menu > Adjustments Hope that i did help you enough.. and i think it is exactly what you did.. Waiting for your reply.. Thanks and respect.. JOE

Hello..I would try shadow/highlight tool..

I managed to get something similar: 1-- first I did brightness/contrast like you described: -45/+27 2-- then I chose Edit/Fade Brightness/Contrast to adjust the amount slider a bit 3-- then I did a Filter/Sharpen.../Smart Sharpen at 100%/4pixels. You can really do a lot with this Smart Sharpen tool in advanced mode in the highlights and shadows Hope you can do something with this...

So glad that i was right and helped you my friend KAI!! hehe i will hit you with alot of things to make you stand and be one of the best on photoshop application ;) Have a wonderful day my friend. and if you need anything please feel free to ask.. Thank you..

Well thanks to all I've strangely combined all that ya'll have taught me just here and coming up with some great results!!!! Thanks so much for the help guys!!!!

I don't know what you did, but the right one looks very nice to me

Sounds like you got plenty of input here. I do like the effect for the flower image.