happy, Happy, HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

Stunning! Love the white kitty

Very nice piece of work

This is great! The kitty looks a bit too blurry to me...but sweet image!

Congrats for 2nd. I really like the mug.

Congratulations

Congrats for second.... I love your entries...so detailed and well executed.... !

Congratz with being second!!

Beautiful results!

Perfect for this contest, RIGHT ON TARGET

Beautiful !! Having in mind that is night time, shadow that girl is casting is too strong IMO

Thank you all for your nice comments. The remark on the shadow could be right, although knowing how bright a night is with a full moon shining on snow covered land I'm not sure.

PS: sorry, wanted to give you the gold thumps up and clicked the wrong color. So please accept two more points from my heart.

I definitely agree about the strength of the shadow, but then again with surreal lighting, surreal shadows are to be expected :P

Really nice fantasy scene

You should remove the shadow with clone or simply soften it. Very nicely done.

thank you all. Had to replace Santa as he was an illustration which is not allowed to use. So now there are doves that come with Photoshop. Also changed the title as "I saw Santa Claus" now does not fit anymore. Also worked on the shadows as you recommended. Hope the mods now approve and you still like it.

Appologies to the mods for using an illustration, I was not aware of that rule. Surely enough I could not find a PHOTO of Santa.

You Mods do a great job here and I truly thank you for that.

oh wow! This is sooo beautiful! Nice work

I like this idea very much. I liked the sleigh w/Santa so I searched on flickr and found this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/borrowed/2071281749/sizes/l/ Should be easy to mask the shape, a little clean up and it should work and you'll keep your original idea! Couldn't hurt to try.

The rule regarding use of illustration has been changed slightly. See http://www.pxleyes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2956&p=39727#p39727 for details.

Like the creation. A bit of shadow angle and blur. Like the idea and choice of source.

The doves just don't work as a substitute, since doves don't fly at night...Maybe some bats or owls or a jet in the sky...

right, thank you spaceranger! I used the image of mammadepants and now the image is back to the original idea and title. Sorry for all this back and forth, but my idea at first I liked best and so I'm very happy to be able to show it to you again the way I did at first.

The shadow is about 10 degrees off from the light source...just draw a line and see. Not bad otherwise.

i love this picture. however acording to the rules ""Basic rules: -You cannot use complete night skies -"" this is the perfect image for a Christmas card. i love this

thank you, CMYK46. You are right, I am aware that the shadows are a bit off, since the sun was not in the same place as the moon. Tried to move it but didn't like the outcome. I wanted to express a dreamy Christmas feeling and I hope the 10 degrees off shadow do not hurt that.

@ Dragonside: Thank you! But I did not use "complete night sky", did I? I integrated the clouds as part of the night sky and placed a shining full moon there, see it?

yeah im agree with Dragoncide , You cannot use complete night sky , cuz u placed the night sky on the original sky ,IMO , but this good entry , Good luck

text is unnecessary!!! you have a box called TITLE!!!

Thanks everyone! I updated the entry using screen mode on the sky and I also put another step in the sbs with a print screen on it. I hope this helps now. The sky is now slightly brighter, which actually I like better. The entry follows completely the rules as far as I can judge that.

@ ShiZa: why are you yelling at me? The title of the image is: I saw Santa Claus, I do not want to change that. Read the description: "I turned an image taken on a sunny afternoon into a Christmas Greeting Card." So the text is just fine where it is. O.k.?

Author nice job imo and you should send this to friends and family next Christmas
They will love it and the fact you made it for them.

The theme states "-You cannot use complete night skies -You can use moons, stars and clouds cut from night shots - some of what you use can be shot at night but only minimally -" This entry fits this description, only parts allowed are used.
@ShiZa, normally I don't like text on entries either however this is a greeting card and I agree with cabldawg71, it's a very nice one!

Very very good job author...I love how u created dark here...and the great thing about your entry is your bright night feel...Its hard thing to achieve great result like u did...best of luck

Nice job Would be nice Christmas card

Great work and wonderful Christmas card ... IMO spaceranger is right ... image complies with the guidelines. I like the shadows as well ... the whole image has a great night mood!

Cool idea. You could make that mail being held by to ropes of the parachute, something like this http://www.rosidel.ro/imagini/colet.jpg

Thank you . I like your suggestion. There are so many ways to bring an idea to life

Very nice idea author...especially in this time of the year...well done

somehow the letter seems too stiff but otherwise nice idea

Gotta love this!!! Nice, clean work and so perfect for the season!

Hehe cute idea, good job, author!

Lovely idea ! Nice work ! Great job !

lovely idea!!! only the way u attached the umbrella to the envelope looks a bit "suspicious" otherwise I must say again, that i love it!

Sorry but this looks fuzzy and kinda hurts my eyes

It's really too blurry and it needs high resolution.

Very fuzzy & blurry...i have a headache..

So you feel brightness-contrast was a bit too much?

Yes author, this would work much better as a visually 'softer' image. The blownout highlights are too bright and not pleasant to look at. I also dont know if you have added some gausian blur to the image or manipulated it in someway to make it less crisp, but I would undo that.

I have added motion blur to create some movement effect for the snowfall.

The thing is that many of us can't look more than 3 secs at this without our eyes starting to hurt.
The brain tries to find a stable focus point in the view put since there is none is goes: "Error. Cannot Compute. Error" and it hurts .
With the eyes only half oppened the contrast is really awesome

Heehehe I looked at it with eyes half opened.
Honestly I really thing the overall blur to the image is just as disturbing as your color choices. I would have considered desaturating the bright blue/aqua to town it down and bring the red to a more deep hue instead of so bright.
I think you had a decent idea, but could stand to make a few changes.