As debdyutsarker noted, the brick is lacking appropriate perspective. At a minimum, you should skew each wall so that the horizontal mortar lines are parallel to the edge where the wall meets its side of the floor. (That will also fill in the missing brick course along the top edge of your image above the right-hand window.) Ideally, a bit of perspective tapering would also be needed. What is the source for the brick? [BTW I think a title that provided some hint as to why there's a shadow ballerina could make this more compelling.]

Not clear where the light on the figure is coming from. (Windows could not light his face and they would create a shadow angling away, not towards, the windows.)

This 'life' is still a bit austere. The horizontal edges of the picture frame are off, however. Draw lines connecting the horizontal edges and muntins of the two windows on either side of the picture to get guidelines for the picture frame's horizontal edges.

I think this works much better. I would note that while we might be able to see the spotlight's housing from our vantage point, we should not see the bright bulb itself because it's primarily pointed away from us towards her.

A whimsical idea to go along with the whimsical source image BUT: I can't see the mushroom. Why not label the can Mushroom Soda and have one big mushroom on the side to represent the product? The name and the mushroom image would need to be warped to reflect the curved surface they're on.

I confess I don't really understand this. I completely agree with ponti55, however. I would also observe that your gray additions to the pill assume that it's a cylindrical sausage when in fact it has a much more interesting shape with a flat band encircling it. A solar flare or two on the right side of the sun might add some balance.

Like the concept. Foreground glass is a great idea to add depth. The filter end of a cigarette in an ash tray just peeking into the lower right corner of the scene might help better explain the cool smokey atmosphere. Her lighting is off, however. She seems to be slightly forward of the ceiling down lights, yet her front (including shins) are illuminated. I would: Get rid of the down-light ray cones and let those lights just be the wall washers on the brick wall that they are. Unflip the singer and add a spotlight on her coming in from the upper left corner, creating a stronger circle of light with her shadow in the middle on the brick wall behind her.

gornats is right on: the elephant reflection should be just a vertical flip (with no size change).

Very creative and a lovely, surreal image. Having the statues behind the curtain while the umbrella is in front of it might a be little too surreal, however. Also, I confess I would have struggled to identify the sad elements without your explanation. The colorful, entranced gazing statues, for example, don't immediately say "sadness" to me.

Cool retro feel. I'm a little uncomfortable with the size and placement of "we" and the heart relative to "DANCE." Maybe center "we" above the heart? Move the heart up so it's in line with "DANCE" and then overlay "we" on top of the heart? "2010" should be right-justified with "DANCE" -- and I'd make it exactly as wide as the E or maybe even put it inside the E. The yellow stripe should go behind the D, and I think the blue spiral should go behind the text as well. "On 23rd [not 23th] June" should all be on the same line.

Pretty cool. If "2010" is not important, then I would move it down alongside "June" or even delete it. If it is important, then I would make the font size the same as "Dance." (I'd personally name the festival "Dance2010" [one word] and let the final zero go partially behind the silhouette if need be.) "Event On" is kind of unnecessary. Putting all the venue, date, and time info together in the lower right makes more sense to me. (I'd put "Heritage Theater" on one line and use the same font for both 6's.) "With" could be smaller (no initial cap?) as it's not that important a word.

Personally I think the text distracts from the icon, plus it doesn't add anything as it merely repeats what you've already told us in the title. The bottom edge seems too flat: is your medium-gray inner glow on? The washing out of the top of the symbol diminishes its impact for me. Instead of a white-to-green gradient overlay at 100% opacity, I would at least lower the opacity or, even better, use a green-to-black gradient overlay as prescribed by the tutorial you reference.

Not clear why the P squares cast shadows but the folder does not.

Much improved. [Thanks for the shout out! ] BTW the green URL at the bottom appears to have a misspelling.

I like the idea of focusing on the lightning bolt. Right guy should be repositioned so he doesn't have lightning bolt over his face. The guys are like ghosts. Maybe making them black & white and boosting the contrast or maybe applying a filter might yield something graphic that could be made more visible. (One green guy and one yellow guy?) The text font is cool but text placement seems random. "Live in Berlin" is centered but not under "AC/DC" while the date doesn't seem to line up with anything. I would right-justify everything. "Live in" seems unnecessary so I would delete it and expand "AC/DC" until it's exactly as wide as "Berlin."

Disco-ball starting point is not spherized enough (far left and right verticals are virtually straight up and down when they should be the curviest). The busy-ness of the globe overwhelms the text so I would just eliminate it. Not clear why the [blurry in hi-res] PXLeyes family is flat in front of the sphere without any shadow (consistent with the sphere behind it). The reflection is like an odd shadow when a true reflection is identical in size and shape with the original.

Reading "Ice" seems like struggling to pass a color-blindness test, but there's potential here. (What's with the white lines at 6, 8, and 10 o'clock?)

Looks good from down the block, but not quite so much up close. The green ellipse would seem to be the brand focus so I would shrink the "Presents...." (if not the first line as well) to make the ellipse bigger. "Spring Skunk" needs to be as big as "Music Fest." I would position the violin and bow mid-way between the other instruments for better balance and intriguing asymmetry. The skunks are unnoticeable. Reversing the skunks and instruments might be more compelling. [Off-topic quibble: Not sure about the viability of a Friday/Saturday festival compared to a Saturday/Sunday one, or is that just a Friday evening start?.] The band list in the greenish rectangle has too much blank space -- an advertising waste. The online ticket source is not an URL (and "or at the gate" seems wholly unnecessary). I think I would lower the TICKETS banjo so that its bottom falls off the poster.

Nice, except I don't think one would paint an above-ground pool on a sidewalk/roadway/parking lot unless one knew photographers would crop their pics as you did here (no bottom borders visible) -- but if this instead were the uncropped view so we could see where illusion meets reality, then this would be a more compelling illustration of the theme IMO.

I think ricky777 is questioning relevance to theme, not what you accomplished -- although I do feel the shadows look rather fake (don't vary even though the poses do [see the shadows in your golfers photo]).

The source has a very narrow ellipse that is the liquid's surface which you forgot to convert to wine. I think a flatter rim ellipse would improve the perspective (go better with the barely curved liquid-surface line). The glare on the front is on the exterior surface of the glass so it should also be in front of the wine (no color change). The second "its" should be "it's" (needs an apostrophe).

Better. The shadows need to be darker for more consistency with those in the background, need to be thicker (same width as the cross elements casting the shadow), and need to be skewed so the cross-piece's shadow is parallel to the cross piece. I still think having the top of each row noticeably lower than the top of the row in front of it would capture the falling away of the foreground for better linkage with the background.

I think the crisper flowers overpower the pale, ghostly bird and become the focus of attention.

Thanks so much for providing a hot link to the tutorial via the sources list! Your end result seems a bit fuzzy compared with the tutorial's. A hi-res and an SBS might help clear that up.

I think the horse could use stronger shadows on it (Step 8) given the strength of the shadows on the spheres and the shadow the horse is casting on the platform it's standing on. The top platform does not seem to be casting a shadow on the big sphere and the adjacent little sphere does not seem to be casting a shadow on the lower platform. The horse looks like it's floating because there's no strong shadow at the point where the hooves touch the platform.

I confess I like the more colorful image in the tutorial better. (This is kind of Christmasy -- was that your intent?) Your wings seem too flacid to fly. (BTW the tutorial's wings are too far apart IMO.) Her hair seems to be just a bland blur. Her green body is a matter of taste but it nevertheless needs more highlighting (i.e., dodging and burning [not addressed in the tutorial so you just have to look at the 'end result' for guidance]). Add ground highlights as well. I like the wing sparkle, but the 'stars' in the tutorial (really glitter or fireflies) helped justify the width of the image.

The edge between the pavement and the chasm doesn't seem real -- and realism is obviously the whole point. Once it's truly realistic, a car driving over it would show that it's actually fake. Also, I don't get the climber's lost hand [I know that's the way he is in your source, but I'm trying to make sense of it here]. I think the snake could be a lot bigger (hard to tell what it is) and more colorful.

I really like how you included lots of traffic to show that the pavement art is fake. However, I think the pavement art misses the point. As Mr. Mueller states in the FAQ at the linked Website, "every anamorphic street painting only makes sense from one specific spot." And I would think that here that spot would be the driver's seat of the up-bound car just below the center of the image. Since we're flying well above that, we should see a distorted image. In any event, your canyon source image is not what one would see prior to driving off a cliff for that Thelma-and-Louise moment; it's the view of someone standing at the edge and looking down into the canyon.

What's with the tiny green car (which isn't in your SBS and seems to have a tad too small shadow)? The little Bugatti is very cute, however. [I would note that a car that was merely shortened but not shrunk vertically would accomodate a wider range of driver sizes.]

This is very nice, but I think the face needs to stand out more since it's the focus. (The bright white walls in the background are like all I can see.) A color version would be interesting.

Seems too pretty to be a crash scene. (None of the windows broke?) It might be more evident that a mate is missing if only a very tiny bit of the front balloon were visible in the upper left corner and the other balloons appeared to all be on the same level as that front balloon as they follow the curve of the river giving a clearer impression of a break in formation [rather than swooping down from up in the air with the front balloon looking like it's off course on its way to join its mate in the water]. Also, the joint where the mirrored images meet to form the balloons is awkward in hi-res (and the warpy bottom area of the front balloon is discernable even here).

This is a difficult background to work with. The view is looking down towards the lower far field with the foreground sloping away. However, you treated the foreground as flat [my eyes interpret the crosses as equal-sized and vertically true], but that's inconsistent with being able to see the tops of the hay bales in the far field. The light is from the upper left corner, so we should be looking at the shadowed side of the crosses and they should have long, strong shadows going south-southeast (like those of the hay bales). If the crosses are marking graves, they seem too close together. And then they don't seem to be organized in a cemetary-like grid (after adjusting for perspective, of course).

Lady Liberty looks like she's toppling backwards. Your source pic was taken at the base of the statue looking up so it doesn't match the perspective of the step pyramid which was photographed from a distance for a more head-on perspective. It should not be too difficult to find a Statue of Liberty pic taken from more of a distance away.

Nicely done except the background makes the birds appear to be about the size of hummingbirds. And the green branch they're perched on seems kind of weird.

Looks real to me, and a very clever (i.e., non-obvious) idea for the contest theme.

Quite amusing for its commentary on the underlying concept of this contest. The perspectives on the big 0 and 1 are off; they're inconsistent with the little 0 and 1's on the smaller keys. Also, the decimal (not binary) numbers on the pxleyes screenshot would seem to be a violation of the theme.

[I also appreciate Drivenslush's explanation of the thumbs-up icon.]

Creative incorporation of two different items with numerals into a single image for a more complex entry. The perspective on the inkwell is way off, however. (We should be looking nearly straight down onto it.) I also think the watch should cast more shadow on the fingers. I personally would try to arrange the items/crop the image so that the amount of wood desktop (uninteresting background) showing is minimized.

Looks much better. Use the Burn Tool to add a hint of facial features. Create an eye- or mouth-shaped selection beforehand to constrain where the burning occurs. (BTW the vertical neck shading would be better deleted IMO. And the collarbone shading needs the little dip at the bottom of the throat.)

Appealing sentiment, but it's hard to imagine anyone would illustrate it with this image if they weren't forced to use the source. (What parents want their kids to leap between blossoms far up in the sky?) That said, the intense colors of the blossoms overwhelm the kids. And their shadows are distractingly intense and don't follow the contours of the blossoms they fall on. I think moving the kids more to the foreground (i.e., bottom of the image) would be more effective. [Alternative concept: regular road lined by giant tulips on either side.]

Very nice, but it would be even nicer if I knew what tulips had to do with juice, let alone how tulips make juice real. (BTW I would echo iquraishi's comment on the font effect and wish you had addressed that in your SBS.)

Nice, but: Not clear why the colored keys are colored, let alone why they don't have letters on them. Also, why aren't the numbers centered on their keys (especially noticeable on the keypad)?

Your source pic has the fruits arranged along a diagonal line so your bullet is only piercing the pear which is not that obvious from your image (much too much pear-entry debris), plus the pear-exit debris is clearly not all originating from the exit point. A crisper bullet (with less crisp reflection) would also be more convincing (without the path-blur behind it).

Cool! Apparently your source image from topfer has the king of hearts etc. under a sheet of glass which is kind of odd. But topfer also has a pic of the aces without any under-glass cards which probably would have been less distracting. Also, I think a crisper bullet would be more compelling.

The foreground table-top is a creative way to break up the acres of linoleum in Step 9 of your SBS, but now you have acres of (somewhat-hard-to-discern) table-top. A much-bigger glass and pitcher moved to the left would help provide the necessary perspective. I also think the ceiling should be white (it's the 50's!) and cropped to a minimum.

I like the simplicity, but I think that either the ballerina's positioning should conform to the Rule of Thirds [move her to the left-third boundary] or else you should reduce the amount of black space around her -- and bring her a bit more foreward from the back wall. A multi-layed tutu is certainly appropriate, but that doesn't explain the underskirt escaping beyond the overskirt on the left side. And why not add a third underskirt? Perhaps facial features and some sort of tulip headgear would more depth and content.

Very cute. The intense colors fit the fantastical environment. I like the addition of the bear to give the girl something to be looking at and then linking it to the source pic by giving it a heart-shaped tulip (a bit too cutesy for me when the adolescent tulip in the source is charming enough IMO). I might add a tad more burning where the cross bar meets the stems to make it look more constructed than natural (perhaps a different viewpoint from Alan2641's). I'm not a big fan of perfect symmetry: Only manufactured swing brackets would be expected to be identical. [At least horizontal flip the right one.] The big tulips' petals are different, yet their leaves are the same.

I completely agree that in the end it's the author's artistic perogative to do whatever he or she wants (consistent with the theme, of course ).

Very cool. Much improved. I never see UFOs so I feel unqualified to comment on perspective.

If the notion is that the UFO caused the destruction, then the neatly cut tree stump doesn't fit. The shadows on the alien aren't consistent with those on the stump. The UFO seems tilted downward (vanishing point much too high for this Earthling's predisposition). The top edge of the UFO doesn't seem realistic because it's so strong.

Cool vantage point. I don't think the UFO undersides should not be so brightly lit, however, as I would expect them to be in shadow.