I like it. It looks carved into the wall, which is the look you were going for, right? If you decide not to keep and use that one, do you mind if I use it/the one I did? (Don't know for what, really- but it looks neat on some of the walls I use.)

Something I'm wondering here: Can you make your own brushes in Paintshop? If you can it might be easier to do that. Once you use a brush, you can do just about anything to the image. At least you can in PhotoShop. I make brushes quite a bit just to get a plain image that I can fiddle around with. I didn't think of doing that with your image though, lol. The image(s) in the middle of your pic might work out quite well that way.

I will probably use the image, but if it doesn't bother you that we both use it, it doesn't bother me! I'm pretty sure we'd end up going different directions with it.Honestly, if I ever make anything that anybody else thinks is nice enough to do something with, I feel really tickled.

I just recently read how to make my own brushes in Paintshop, but I was really bewildered as to how it could possibly be of any use to me. How is it better than simply copying an image onto a layer in a new file?

My current plan for the sunflower image (or whatever the original carving was meant to be) is to redraw it simpler and with no shading at all, and then go through the various steps we've discussed at length in the thread. I've given up the idea of using bump maps with it for the time being, though I still really suspect it would be tremendously more awesome that way!

I'll get into PhotoShop soonish (or in the morning) and show you what can be done with a brush. You can also look at my window recolors- literally recolors of my windows!- to get an idea. Most, if not all, of the recolors were made with brushes (some that I made) that I used effects on. The white, etched ones especially. Bevels, shadows.. it really changed the way the original image looked. What I did should work for what you're trying to do, too.

Totally useless information- there were about 10 spelling mistakes in the above. Must be bedtime, lol.