...but there is always room for improvement! I worked on this most of the evening, fiddling, merging layers, blending, blah blah...followed the suggestions of my comrades here...brought back definition to the hand (and that lost bit of thumb) and worked on the shadow of the hand...I was happy enough to post this in the gallery anyway...thanks for the previous advice, and if you can think of anything else to improve it, please let me know! :-)>