Photoshop yourself!
 

My Girlfriend got me a very nice Wakizashi for my Birthday, and her copy of Photoshop Cs3... she then proceeed to say that i should take some pictures to learn how to "Photoshop" (as in a verb...)

so i did!!

I loved the gift so much that the camwhore in me couldnt bare it...

So here is the end product =P

http://sp4.fotologs.net/photo/52/21/...02606063_f.jpg

http://sp4.fotologs.net/photo/52/21/...02440387_f.jpg

http://sp4.fotologs.net/photo/52/21/...02252146_f.jpg

Now i encourage any of you crazy people to do the same!

...so i can steal some tips for photoshop, because i did those in just 2 days and im running out of things to do here!

http://i31.tinypic.com/oqdll3.jpg

Cleaned up some coffee stains. Really quite simple. All it took was a magic wand select and some fiddling with color depth and brightness.

Edit:
Also this one.
http://www.nuklearforums.com/image....6&type=profile

A simple matter of taking the original of that picture, taking out the wall and stuff behind me, and sliding a layer under it with a picture of a forming planet. And, well, resizing it all to fit, of course.

Edit Edit: And no, I have no idea why that's showing up as a link.

I dabbled a little bit way back when I got 7.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/7460/eyesmi6.jpg

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/45/warholdo9.jpg

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/5323/stressnb1.jpg
I also have a photoshopped picture of me pointing a toy gun at the camera with the "Do I feel lucky?" speech from Dirty Harry; I'm not sharing it because I can't decide whether I'm proud or ashamed of it.

Filters are bad, very very bad. Should rarely ever use filters in the learning stages of photoshop. Layers are your friends, treat them well and they'll treat your work all the better. Now mind you Bellsouth, you likely have the instruction book to hold your hand through the very basics. I learned the hard way: no books, only tutorials on the net. You have an advantage here.

http://phong.com/tutorials/
go there, learn it, love it. Phong has tutorials ranging from beginner to advanced. Also has links to other places to branch out on other learning projects.

Note that most of these are more for the advanced users but still good to fiddle about with things to learn no matter what. So don't let the advanced stuff intimidate you, do what you can with them until you're in too deep and go back to the easier stuff till one is more acclimated to the layout, tools, menus, etc.
100 photoshop tutorials
Best of Smash Magazine photoshop tuts.

Did these two a while back. A process of using stock photos both of ones I took myself (chiefly cement, cement is sexy for texture layering), stock photos from the internet, brightness/contrast tweaking, light use of the brush tool, burn & dodge, multiple layer overlays.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...s/Stalking.jpg
~~
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ingTweaked.jpg
This second one didn't turn out as well as the first. But I like it nonetheless.
~~~
We are all a whole made singular from the sum of experiences.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...xperiences.jpg

There be a reason yer called Grandmaster ain't there?

Yar! there be! o.O

all we have to do is slap the words "silent hill X" under that second photo there, and we can all go home like marry happy pimping poddles

Here's something I did not too long ago. It's a portrait I did of myself (based on a picture from long ago) but basically outlined it and colored it on Photoshop. That still counts, right?

http://i30.tinypic.com/10y44fr.png

Right?

Heheh... Conehead hair!! <<

Me as gutz.
 

So, there's this really cool picture of gutz from Records of the Lodoss War I found. So I slapped my face on him, and it turned out pretty good.

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/f...h2/Me-Gutz.gif

Sorry, I don't know how to make the nifty collapsible thing...

My sad, sad attempt at GIMPing a picture of myself. I used to be decent with PSP, but then it sorta cost money. :P

How's this here attachment doohickey work? *presses button*

Edit: No idea where that bloody stupid white border came from, and I'm too lazy to fix it. Ignore it. It's not actually there.

Slick, do this for some slight tweaking on the face if you still have the psd
Image>adjust>brightness contrast.
Slide the contrast a bit to match the body.

Cati, looks like inner glow layer effect set on a different layer that shows the left and top sides, that is if you used multiple layers.