Looks light the point of light you go for if you were in a cloud field in space and it was the way out. To much Star Trek when i was a kid.

No such thing as too much Star Trek! Especially when you were a kid!!!

wonderful shot, great detail

Thank you. This was day 2 of "I am going to get a dragonfly shot if it kills me" and this little lady final sat still long enough. I think I wore her out!

Great shot & detail

I love to shoot mosquito hawks! They're pretty cool, and don't bite (humans anyway)

Beautiful shot

Congrats for your third place!

Thank you all so much!!!

Congratulations!

So wonderfull, really love this one , perfect morphing, maybe one day we`ll see plenty of these strange creature and others around us ! Good luck author.

Not sure about the wing distortion, but it's a good fun image!

True i think you should reduce the distortion on the wings, rest is really good, amazing blending.

Great blending . . . . All the best to u . . . .

Sweet idea very well done!

Really loved that one..Good luck

well done

EDIT: Changed wings ...they are now closer to the original butterfly. I did not want to use the unaltered wings as the butterfly is at rest in the original photo and my little guy is coming in for a landing. I felt the wings would be in a different position.

Too Cool!! Great Work Author Best of Luck

So nice that it seems real!!! Great combo of images.

Thank you all for the lovely comments and favs!

Good blend.

lolz oh my gawd.....this is funny....cant even imagine anythng like ths...well done

Awesome creation author! I really like this one!

Congrats again! You are really a great addition to PXL

Well done!

congrats

Congrats!! Good week for you!

congrats!!

Congrats Arc...

Congrats for third place !

Fantastic ! love the contrst between the grey and the orange/red

Very nice scene! I also like that you've used mostly your own images. One think you could work a little on; the transition between de fore and background. They don't look connected. You could at least blur the far end of the bridge/edge since the back is blurred too. And maybe make the front part of the mountain where the bridge is touching it grey too like the foreground. Good luck!

awsommmme... love the hands through the path and even teh girls hair is cool... well put together author great peice of art work here

A.W.E.S.O.M.E

Sorry it took me so long to get to this. I have been out of town and did not have access to a sort of took Ressiv's advice but instead of softening the end of the bridge ... which I had don a little already I sharpened the mountain just a bit so it would me the same sharpness as the bridge where it connects. And I added a little gray to the portion of the mountain.

I did not want to soften the back ground too much as I wanted to have a more surrealistic look than "natural" I hope I have achieved that???

Agree with the others' opinions. About the background I don't think you have to work more on it, now it's fine. The purpose of using the shallow DOF is making the main subject standing out. In your case, the path behind her has the pattern which is uniform enough to lead the focus to the girl, so it's okie, not mention that you also achieved the surrealistic look . But I still have some questions for you, author. Why the hair is longer than her left hand when they have equal position horizontally (I mean both of them are limited by the ground, so the end of the hair should be higher or equal to the left hand, which is a bit in front of the hair). Why the statue hands behind her have the long, straight, and sharp shadows but she has just blurry and not clear shadow (the hair needs shadow on the ground also)? The last thing is the nails of the statue hands look distorted too much.
All in all, the first impression on this work is very good, especially the wise use of color and smart composition. You really have not only the good skill but also the artistic eyes, congrats!

Love it! Spooky feeling of horror without the blood and gore! Beautiful rendering!

Langstrum ... thank you so much for all your advice.

I have redone the hair (shorter and now melting into the ground like the hands), softened the shadows on the hand statues and added missing hair shadow! For the distorted hand statues I touched them up a bit but I am trying for a sinister, surrealistic look and want them to be odd... so left them quite warped.

Regarding her body shadows ...the shadow is not as sharp as the hand statues because she is between the buildings and the light is not getting to her (this was intentional, to depict the darkness and claustrophobic feeling of being trapped inside a mental illness). I also avoided strong shadows on the statues in the corridor around her for the same reason.

The lighting is off on the whole image to some degree. I wanted it to be nightmarish so I tried to make things not quite "right". So, just like in a dream where everything is off but still feels real I thought that the lighting and shadows was a good area to mess with, if you know what I mean???
Thanks again for your well thought out critiques ... great help!

beautiful

good luck!

great ........

WELL DONe !!

Very good,dark scene.

Excellent, love it, very timely for Halloween.

Very cool work author...this look like one very scary place...best of luck

Congratulations

Congrats...fantastic entry,well deserved in hard competition...well done

Congrats! wonderful work!!!

Congrats!! A wonderful, creative entry!! A real winner!

Congrats Arca, ENCORE!

Congrats!!! Really love this work!

Congrats & very well done Arca.... hope to see more!

Congrats, another great creation =)

This is such a beautiful image and makes me feel like I am up there with that bird. Bird could maybe use some motion blur so that it doesn't seem to be motionless. Your SBS is SOOOO outstanding. Would like to know what program you were using. My Adobe 6 doesn't seem to have all the options you described. High score!! GL

very soothing image................

very sweet work, good luck!

Artgirl ...I am working in CS5. What options doesn't 6 have? I used to work in PS6 and may be able to suggest alternate ways to do the same thing ... PM me if you want

Re Wing Blur - I know what you mean. I did try that when I was first working on the picture but it never looked quite right. I could perhaps blur the wings a bit? I did have the teardrop hanging more straight down originally but thought that having it flowing backwards helped to give the sense of motion.

Once again.., beautiful job

Very nice Author I like this alot

Fabulous work author...animated part in SBS is nice touch,,,good luck

Simple but amazing! Very good job author, i love the perspective and the colors overall!

I imagine the bird carrying our dreams in that bubble... Very beautiful image, and the colors are so nice!...

I was SO looking for a coconut in the bubble. My first thought was, "Is it an African swallow or a European swallow".
Back to the point, its painterly and VERY nice!

animated sbs is very good

very pretty, I like attention to detail on your mountains

Pingenvy ... I am pretty sure it is a North American Wood Swallow but I changed the colour to match the image better...it was originally; a great iridescent blue on the back and lower part of the wings, white belly and brown/gray everywhere else ... tee hee, sneaky me! Oh and sorrry about the coconut ... I will consider it if I do a revised edition someday

Very nice image.

Congratulations!

Thank you all so much for your comments and support ... I am certainly loving my new home! Many hugs to all!

Congrats

congrats

Arca, wonderful work!!! congratulations!!!

Congrats!! Sweet image!