Well, Im still learning, and probably always will. But one thing Ive discovered about Photoshop is that theres always several different ways to do the same thing. One person says do it like this, and someone else says, Thats stupid, do it like that! Use curves or instead color balance & contrast? The results can be identical. With that being said, heres how I bring up levels in a photograph where some areas are already so bright that theyll lose image detail if you turn up the contrast or brightness by even a small amount. BTW, I use 5.5, will get 6 soon. Click the Magic Wand on the bright area. Adjusting the tolerance of the wand will affect the amount of area chosen. Clicking select/similar will further expand the chosen area, and also select similar levels in the picture separated from your first area. Then go select/feather. The size of the photograph will determine the amount of feather desired. Feather softens the edges enough to prevent the eye from detecting a level change line. Experiment to see the difference. Thank God for History (Window/Show History). After you mess it up, go back and delete your errors! Then open the Layers window, and right click on the layer. Choose Layer Via Copy. Now the chosen bright area is a separate layer, and you can adjust the background layer (entire picture) without affecting the bright area. You can do more than one Layer Via Copy. I also use it to bring up the contrast in a photograph when the dark areas are OK, but the mid and upper levels need a push. That way, when you turn up the contrast, the detail will not go away in the darker areas, where as if you had just turned up the contrast, the dark detail may have turned to solid black. Hope this helps! marshall

Thanks Punkman, and yes, Phrank Zappa was a musical genius! To bad it didnt rub off on Moon Unit and Dweasel.

OK, quick and almost instant. Made a second layer of the bright white part so I wouldnt lose any detail. Then hit auto levels (it had too much blue in the dark areas) and then brought up the contrast a bit more. Flattened image; no loss of detail in the white portions. It took about 30 seconds!

Niko, Im amazed how that slim white line of a border you added did so much in bringing out the flower and overall feel of the picture! Cool!

If you go for the zip lock gig, make sure you don't get the brand where the tomatoes went bad! Not all zip locks are created equal!

I'd like to see #1 closer cropped to the eye. #3 is my favorite. The look in her eye is so intense I don't know if I'm about to be seduced, or slashed by a psycho killer (great song by the Talking Heads). #4 is my second favorite. I like the "I don't give a shyte" look in her eye. I don't have much reaction to #2 and #5. I love the high contrast. Nice stuff, and she's good! And gosh Finder, what a great idea! Thinking enough of yourself to post your own mug shot on your forum comments!

It seems to me that an alias vote could be detected by the powers that be at Renderosity. Each computer has its own fingerprint of sorts. If that same print votes for a picture more than once, then I would think all should be deleted, or at least all but one.

Super detail in the reflections! Niko is right, as ice starts to melt, it gets real shiny and reflective; almost like a mirror. Looks like what youve here. Cool shot!

A lot of places say that about the weather. Usually theyre near a large body of water. It was that way when I lived on the Florida Gulf Coast. Punk How close are you to the fires that seems to have been in our news for several weeks now?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?Sectionid=2

I agree. It's hard to tell how much is the photograph, and how much is altered. The reflection on the water is just awesome.... the kind of stuff the Bryce people would die for. You must give us some more information about this!

Beautiful! That REALLY looks old. Is that snow on the ground? And green grass too?