Nongo - Your's came out better than mine.  I tried the burn tool, but my grass didn't look nearly as good as what you came up with.  I'll look at the healing tool.  I've never worked with that before.  Thanks for your advice and effort.  I appreciate it.

Tanchelyn - Thanks for the advice.  I'll try that.  PSP does have layers, so I'll see what I can come up with.

Thanks!

Michael -

Thanks for the attempt, but my problem is that I have 5 or 6 photos with similar damage.  I was hoping to find a way to repair it.  Some of the photos can't be cropped.

Hmmm...I played around with the burn tool as you suggested (never used it before).  It helped some.  It might be the way to go after I get better at using it.  Not sure that the clone will really help here with the size of the area I'm trying to fix. 

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll play around with that some more.

Gotta ask...what's Johnny 5?  You lost me.

Hey - that's great.  Thanks for posting.  I love these old photos.  I guess like probably everyone in this forum I'm a visual person and nothing let's me feel history more than these old photos.

Oh!  I bet that's it!  I want to change my answer to the nozzle of a disposable lighter.  How could I miss that?!?  I guess I've been smoking all these years for nothing.

No one wants to guess?  How about a wrench? 

One downside of all this talk about comments is that now I'm stressed about what I write.  I see something that I like and I'm trying to come up with some new way to say "Wow!  Great shot!"  I'm here avoiding work, not adding to it.  

But I'll get through it.  I suppose it's a good exercise to try to articulate what I like about an image.

(See, now I'm using words like "articulate")

Oh well, back to work so I can get a break from all this deep thinking.

David.

Ouch.  You had to mention music.  I'm out of the country for a month and my mp3 player won't hold a charge.  That's just cruel.

I can't get enough of Tom Waits (Alice and Blood Money).  If there's anything better, I haven't heard it.  Of course, I'll wear myself out on it and have to find something new.

David.

I'm a little scared to post a reply here since I just posted a pic that I suspect deserves some pretty serious constructive criticism.  Not that I don't want any - I welcome it, but the idea of fifty fired up people all hammering me at the same time might be a little overwhelming.

I think there needs to be another option on the comments pulldown for "No seriously, I encourage constructive criticism.  I'm not kidding.  I really do.  Go ahead.  It's ok."

And finally, I catch myself using some generic "wow" comments, but that comes from a lack of technical vocabulary.  I know what I like, but can't always articulate why.   I only comment on pics that catch my attention, never out of obligation, so please no one comment on mine out of obligation.

Thanks.  David.

Hey!  My first appearance in the gallery!  Thanks!  A great way to start the week.

Congrats to everyone.  I look forward to looking through the ones I missed when I have a little more time.

David

Great question.  I stumbled across one of these sites a few weeks ago myself and had the same thought - if it's something that people have had some experience and success with.

I don't think I'm ready to put anything on one of the sites.  I'm a newbie trying to find my style at this point, but I was cusious and thought it might be a goal in the future.

I would love the hear from someone that could say, "Yes, I use these sites and this is the primary way I sell my work" or is this something that can be a ego boost and get some pics our in the marketplace but will never amount to anything financially significant?  I'm not expecting any photographers are getting rich off sites like this, but I wonder if a high-demand pic on one of these sites represent tens of dollars, hundreds of dollars, or more?

I guess ultimately, like Onslow says you would have to know the market and tailor pictures that would be useful for business publications and what not.  That doesn't really interest me, so I suspect I'm out, but I'd still like to know more about it from people with experience.

I guess this was just a really long way to go to say "ditto" to your original question.  Sorry.

David.

Hey!  I bet I was the first person to see this week's list.  I guess there is a benefit to being unable to sleep.  Congrats to everyone that had an image was selected.

David

David.

Oh man.  You never should have told me that the winner got 4 votes.  I was sure there were thousands of votes and my poor like picture was barely edged out of the top ten, but now I have to come to terms with the realization that it got 0 votes.  My fantasy world is crashing down around me.  I didn't have to be good - I just wanted to think I was good. 

(I didn't get enough sleep last night)

Congratulations Matt and everyone else. 

David.