useful link too was looking for this...

Here's a mini tut i made about masking.
http://photoshopcontest.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=120343&sid=78a8f9b236de5257635ca345da9face6

here is the updated on with some filters thrown in set them to different overlay effects for some interesting results have fun

http://www.box.net/public/h8qdsk5j9n

Sorry that this thread has been kinda dead. I started feeling ill on Wednesday and ended up in bed all day Thursday. Now it's Friday and I'm getting a quick PSC fix and then I'm off to bed again.

So I haven't tried much else since starting this thread. But I will probably play around today when I wake up (depends on if the wife lets me ).

I've already got two ideas for chops that I want to do (not for contest but for learnin'). I'll start one of them and then post the results as a "follow the learning process" kind of thread. My hope is that I'll be able to post the .psd and get feedback on what to do to it to improve the ending image. Then I'll go back and implement the suggestions as best I can until I'm happy with the image. Then on to the next image idea. I think it has the potential to be a great learning tool for everyone new to Photoshop.