i think its perfectly reasonable to be irritated when nobody answers you thread
i know i have been

i'm back with more . i've had a lot of fun with these pictures! here's the edits i've made after reading the comments, i'll choose two of these (one where she looks at the viewer, one where she listens for something) and put them in the story (it's actually a very simple video, with a voice telling the actual story and some mod setting music and simple pictures):



esper: i can agree the special effects aren't really needed, but they're a bit like make up - no one actually needs it, but it's so much more fun with than without, so the special effects stay . i liked the "surreal" touch you suggested, but in the end i thought it was a bit too much for what i was making, so i didn't use those pictures. instead i put them in as layers over the original pics and changed layer modes and opacity and got some really nice results - that's in number two, five and six. about being irritated when no one replies to your thread - yes, that's probably natural. but when you loose all confidence in your work because no one comments on it you're just being hypersensitive and silly. i'm not normally like that!
draconian: thank you for being so supportive! i did take some (or actually a lot) of pictures of her staring into the bowl, but none of them turned out good. probably because they were taken in my small flat where there wasn't enough room to play with angles and distances. i knew i wanted one where she stared at the viewer and one where she didn't, so i used that one where she seems to be hearing something instead of one where she stares into the bowl. i took your suggestion and added beams to the puffs - i liked your beams better than my own, but i'm just no good with light beams, so this is my best attempt so far. maybe i'll have time to make something better. i made two versions and i think i like the second one best (that's in numbers three to six, there's a slight differens between number three and the others).
mariawendt: you're so right, sister . i don't usually do this, though, it's because they were photos.
paynekj: thanks for the encouragement! that meant a lot coming from someone who takes such great photos. i'd be happy to hear those minor criticisms you talk about, they probably won't mean anything to these pictures but they might be useful for the future.
wbool63: thank you! you made a very good point and i learned a lot from my experiments with the clone tool on different modes - i had never thought of trying that before . i think i need a lot more practice with that, though, so in the end i tried something simpler to give at least a little of those extra highlights from the candles. you can see it in number one and two, more pronounced in number one because i didn't change anything else. in the last four pictures i didn't put in the highlights because i think she seems out of range from the two light sources and i don't want to highlight the background even if may be more realistic - but maybe i'm wrong here?

Wow - you've been busy. Lovely work.

Nice work AnMal.

erisian: thanks! yes, these edits have kept me busy but i've now finished the whole thing and i'm happy with it .
he4rty: thank you!