Love Ziggy! Great job with your friend's *ahem* parts!

That is a good job my friend.... good luck.

Ziggy is great! High vote just for that!

The brickpattern can barelly be seen, if you decide to make it more visible warp it to fit the form.
Use some reference to help you with the entry:
http://www.grandmas-attic.com/images/a2331.jpg

I wish I had seen this image earlier. Thanks for the suggestion greymval.

You can get inspired from it, but not use it or reproduce it, since it's copyrighted.
I posted it so that you can see the proportions, mood, lighting & how an entry should look.
The lighthouse is your MAIN so it would be better to be more detailed and occupy more space, for starters.
You can search for lighthouses on sxc, you should find plenty of shapes and environments to enspire you there.
You can edit your entry if you want to improve it My stuff-My contest entries.
There you have it: the 3 "you can"s. :P

I respect the effect you were trying to achieve, but rather see step five as the finished entry. I would just create a new layer, fill it with black, set the blend mode to color dodge, and then with a soft white 5% opacity brush paint where you want light. Painting over brighter areas with more brush strokes. Then I would create a new layer fill it with a brown color and set the layer blend mode to color and set the opacity of the layer around 25%. This will give you a more dramatic scene. good luck!

Thanks. I will try that and reply about outcome.

very good dark contrast the waves is just incredible. good work

Author, you don't need to post link 2, because it's the same as original source. To pick up the image that is given to be manipulated you just click on the image - it will direct you to the download page. Then you simply drag it to PS (it has to be opened). Or save it in a folder.

thanks

pretty neat

the shadow is opposite to the lite source and the part where the sky meets the sand is too dark... try and blend it better.. maybe use a smooth brush tool or blur a little....

it is a nice idea

The shadows have opposite directions, but i love the sky and the idea of having the vase in the desert

it looks so much more alive this way i usaly make multiple exposures to achieve this effect but this works as well!

Thank you I am a big hdr fan Glad you enjoy it

Hi res might help the overall viewing??

I agree about the high res, but it looks great from here!

Stunning o.o love the colors

I like how you put the green in there