Sounds like Photoshop is new Kate...lots of great effects. Like this...real attention getter.

Ooooooohh! What fun! Nice composition, and I love what you've done with this! Have fun, and be sure to ask questions of several people. Everyone uses Photoshop a bit differently, and there is a never-ending stream of stuff to learn. Good stuff! :D

Fun stuff, Kate; I like what you did with this!!

Oh Kate - once the Photoshop bug bites, you are lost forever!!! LOL... Bless Chip for showing you a few tricks! This is marvelous and how I wished for a white Christmas! We had soaring temps of between 33 and 34C here in Johannesburg!

All clever stuff Kate and as you say I think this was far enough to be still enjoyable to look at!

I really like what you did with this! I'm sure it began as a perfectly nice photograph with absolutely nothing wrong at all with it...and then with a bit of tweaking and playing around, you turned it into a really great semi-abstract...sort of. It actually looks more like chalk on canvas or something like that. I love the hand done quality you brought out, and that little splash of red is a real grabber. As a particular, lanky Russian dude I know would say: This is enough good. Whenever he says that, in a rather Mr. Spock-like tone of voice, he's gushing and effusive, and now, whenever I see something marvelously done, I adopt that Mr. Spock by way of a lanky Siberian manner. This is "enough good." I really like it. Oh, and Photoshop is an incredible amount of fun. It's a whole new artistic palette with all sorts of cool tools, doodads, and shindingles. I have no idea what a shindingle is, but Photoshop has at least a dozen of them, and they're all a lot of fun. I especially love the way it (and other programs like the Gimp) allow you to do whatever you have the ability to do...you're no longer limited by what materials are at hand...I really love the way you can impress people by saying: "Oh, I just applied a cascading series of differential filters after running a number of mode-interchange algorithms, and graphed the whole thing on a parabolic curve." It sounds so much more complicated than the truth: "I clicked a button, liked what I saw and decided to click another button." That's one of the things I like about photoshop. You can get away with spewing nonsense technobabble. But anyway, enough technobabbling. I love this piece. It has that really nice quality you'd find in the best 2D work, and this is really good. Feel free to do and post more. And Christmas was fun, too...even Molly had a good time, and that's always a good sign.

you're discovering the vast world of Photoshop! Great! People paint with it, create complete original 'canvases' with it, and of course advertising makes manipulations of severe precision with it, and just about everything else in the world is done with it. I'm glad you're diving in and tearing the world up with it. You've created a lovely canvas-y thing here, a bit of chalk (pastels), and an angular abstract. I agree with chip about that red. And you've made an almost bas relief or etching out of the photograph. Fine work! And if you sometimes lose the photo in your manipulations, that's fine, as long as you like what's coming out. Sometimes photos are 'bases' for a digital painting, other times the photo will be the 'star' of the piece. Just depends on what your muse wants. (Luckily you can keep older versions and redo them---so far I've never learned how to do that with physical art!) And I can tell you that, in addition to the broad filtering the program allows (and be sure to check out free plugins, whether on Mac or PC), there is the myriad fine tunings you can do, of which even a little can add magic. It's a whole universe, and this is a great start. Looks like it was a good photo, too. And keep in mind that PShop can make wonders out of awful photos too (tara, helle & I did a treatment of one of my hideous blurs, I don't have the link but just to show you you can make art out of photos you wouldn't show to a newt). Some people save their awful photos precisely because they make great 'grounds' for a digital painting. Anyway, this wasn't an awful photo. Nice work Kate!

It almost looks like a drawing instead of a picture. Great shopping work done.

..what can I say?? I am speechless!So stunning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would also like to take this opportunity to wish you the very best of the holiday season, and hope that all of your wishes and dreams come true!

outstanding effects

Kate I bet you had alot of fun with Photoshop and the result is really beautiful and interesting. I use PSP9 and I also have great fun with my photos that way :-)

superbe ! beautiful work !

What a fantastic shot! Excellent image.