Thank you to all the contestants with their creative altered reality. There were some excellent entries that I wished more HMs could have been rewarded to! The Honorable Mentions: placed in order of posting in contest. These were all very close & different techniques made it even harder to pick: (it was hard enough picking the top 3)There were a couple more that were so very close that I wished I could have given HMs as well. Some fabulous creations and tweaking.
"Bubble": distorted reflection in a bubble by Nick Vivian ( nickviv)
"2012 - John - Albufeira, Algarve: Portugal": 4 Images of same person with fabulous expressions seamlessly put together by John C. de Freitas (jcdefreitas)
"9" by Maaike Huizer (emmelafoto) colorful soft focus portrait child with wonderful expression and the sharp scarlet parrot
"09189274www-mangl-atAnd2more.jpg" by Erich Mangl (erichmangl) Nice composition where rope railing leads eye to the photographer whose camera pointing at a 'birdman' seamlessly put together.
"Inverted Bridge 1" by Jasja van Leeuwen (dapascha) amazing circle with nice symmetry looking almost like a face.
And for the winners...very very close!!
3rd Place: "Droste Effect on a Pbaser...."Terry Bowker" (terrybowker) very cool "Droste effect" repeating image
2nd Place: "Hybrid Chicken" by Markus Grompe (grompem) Chicken with human eye seamlessly done and the eye is looking towards where the chicken head is pointing making it look quite realistic.
And the winner is: irslynx A lovely composition with fabulous colors and sense of fantasy with the added bubbles. Nicely put together quite seamlessly.
Congratulations & again thanks to all the participants!