Weekend words of wisdom

I found this quote and it made me realize something. Every time I get discouraged trying to do an edit or when designing a new kit I'm competing with people who have been doing this much longer than I have. The only one I should be competing with is myself (the fairer match). When I look at it in those terms, I can see that I'm doing pretty well. My skills and knowledge have improved since I first started.

For anyone who is interested, I'll explain how I did the above edit.
First I opened the picture of yours truly. I added a new layer below the picture and filled it with color. (I used the color picker to choose a color from the sweater I was wearing) I then added a texture to that layer.
To blend the picture into the background I made a selection around the subject using the marquee tool. I feathered the selection (100) then chose select inverse and hit the delete key until I was happy with the look. Again using the marquee tool I made an oval selection around the picture and on a new layer I added a stroke outline. I then merged the outline down to the picture. Next I added a bevel and changed the layer opacity to lighten. For the text I again chose a color from the picture and typed in the quote. I also added a bevel to the text before merging all the layers. To finish it all off I added another stroke outline around the entire image on a new layer. Using the selection tool I highlighted the outline then moved to the image layer and hit delete. On the image layer I added an inner shadow.
After doing this edit I realized one other thing about myself. I really need a dye job....lol