Nebula

I originaly was trying to make fire, but it sort of evolved into a space shot

http://graphikdezignz.com/gallery/gd/albums/userpics/10005/Nebula-from-scratch.jpg

It's a good start for a background with another figure in the foreground, and perhaps you might want to homogenize the color of the 'gaseous' space, making it a little less psychedelic. Also, tone down the lens-flare usage. They're like candy. Easy to overuse.

Anyway, it's a good start, and I'd like to see some more progress on it.

actually - it's not the overuse of the lens flare that's hurting the filter - rather the bad use of it.
All the major celestial bodies here were made with the lensflare....including the yellowish globular cluster

your nebula is much too busy and not realistic enough. The "whisps" of stellar gas or whatever - the green goo thinghy are way to thick and not random enough.

also the whole thing needs a little perspective - right now it's just a "cut" of the middle of the nebula - for best effects you need to show the "edges" too. and the stars are waay too big - and recognizable as a ps filter.

To use the lensflare properly you need to make your bg black, make a biiiig lensflare (on a separate file) and then resize the part that includes your "star" until the bounceback light rings and bubbles are no longer visible. Then import the layer into your nebula artpiece and set the layer blending mode to screen - or hard/pin light as best suits your purpose. Multiply the layer to your heart's content, move, resize and rotate the multiplications...

thanks for the coents I'll have to work on it a bit.