I am loving learning new photoshop techniques. I fiddled around with layers today and did some cutting and pasting to create composites. the results were, um...interesting and maybe not quite ready to post. more practice is needed.
so I went back to blending images, my favorite trick and one I feel somewhat comfortable with. here is my ubiquitous quince photo blended with a mercury-type texture (some sort of old fuse). I love the result. the colors are perfect and it's amazing how the background ended up looking like a fanciful sky.