dipstick

Use a gradient in "Transparency" mode.

You can: 1) duplicate your target layer. 2) apply drop shadow to that layer (deselect keep image) 3) use GridWarp to distort the shadow.

Excellent work Red. You are a true image artist! I'm a just an image hacker by comparison....

1) You can add a blank layer above your image and fill it with black. 2) Apply camera trouser flare to that layer. 3) Set blending mode of that layer to "Screen" 4) Now you can rotate or whatever....

Or perhaps Lens Flare may help.

Photos are mine.

You can like this:

Never used that plugin, but it sounds just like "Alpha Mask" plugin to me. I use Alpha Mask plugin all the time for things like this....

Removed.

Been using the Polaroid frame plugin (nice effect) for years to make custom slideshows like this example:

All this bickering about images is getting rather old......

Uploading the original image that I shot with my camera is not a good idea. What purpose would that give? This is a contest for image manipulation, not photo contest. I see no value for uploading two images. Well here's a novel approach: If you don't like an image for any reason, don't vote for it.... Here's my original as shot with my camera Hornet (Wasp actually) resized down. I still don't know why I waisted my time uploading the original.

Thanks for the link to that Filter pixey! It's kinda a cross between Healing Brush and Clone Stamp. It works well, though I wish it had more adjustment. I had to keep it at max setting for everything. It made quick work of erasing the power line tower in my photo.

I did it with a custom script running in a free program called Avisynth. You can use a series of images, but it's easier to just shoot a few seconds of video. Make sure the camera is on a tripod and turn off image stabilizer. Here is the script I used: It basically merges and blends frames together at 50% opacity. This creates motion blur only on moving parts.

You may think this is cool, but I consider it very pedestrian. Here is something I consider cool. Taking a series of images shot at 1/120th of a second shutter speed and make it look like it was shot at 3 seconds shutter speed. Good luck doing that with PhotoShop......

Quote from your PhotoShop guide: "After 15 minutes of processing, I’m left with the following image." You can do it faster manually. YES you can do it in Paint.NET and NO, you don't need a plugin for that. This assumes you followed the guide by shooting multiple static shots on a tripod with people moving......

I noticed there are no example images on this thread. I call this one Cherry Bomb...

Maybe BoltBait's Level Horizon will fit the bill for you. http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/31736-level-horizon-plugin-with-tutorial-and-source-code-v13-2015-04-21/

From one of my photos, comes one angry and hairy Hornet.

There are other flag animation tutorials done more recently. http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/32480-flag-animation/

Looks like security for the upcoming Republican Convention...

Awesome shapes Lynx! Here's a little animation for the Dolphin.

Cool Heron image Pixey. I also shot a nice Heron in flight pic. Here it is with the Oil Painting + effect applied.

Thanks, I shot that one in my flower bed while practicing Macro Shooting with my 300 mm lens hand held. Not much lighting, so I had to use 400 ISO. I got pretty good detail just the same though. The Gif destroyed much of it however....

This is great for making custom textures. I used a Granite texture and used Red Ochre's "Object Bevel" to make the edge bevel and the engraving. I then used Aardvark to create the tile and tilt effect.