I then fired up paint shop pro (free trial - download from www.tucows.com) and used the soften tool, with a wide brush, to soften the whole explosion Which I kinda like, and could be an end in itself...alas no the smudge tool in psp, starting at the end of the explosion, then smudging horns in alternating directions, moving backwards, makes the gun "blast" this image was then copied, the new image had a motion blur added, then was pasted over the old one in a new layer. The parts that I didn't want blurred (i.e. the whole image barring the gun and arm) were then cut from the layer letting the original show through.