$200 2nd Prize Winner
"I would love to say that I spent two or three hours on this picture," says 41-yearold graphic designer David Goswick from Tulsa, OK. "In truth, the picture evolved [over a longer time] as it progressed. So the final product is nothing like how it started."
Goswick says that while he was working on this project, his 9-year-old son was in a play about ancient Rome, which no doubt inspired his theme. "I think the two projects melded in my brain and helped me produce the final image," he said. He crafted the virtual toga from the curtains in the living room picture, the sandal from the coffee table, the shield from a wheel of the yellow car, and the spear from the fence in the same picture. The horse was given its new regal look with a digital hair cut, and head gear fashioned from living room upholstery, a lock from the car, and a flamingo feather.
Although Goswick used Photoshop 6.0 for his work on this image, he has used several different programs since he took up digital imaging in the late 1980s, acquiring his skills on the job and on his own. "I have been interested in art for my entire life," he says.
"Manipulating images digitally strikes me as being very powerful, particularly because photographic images have been regarded as the 'truth,' " he adds. "It's fun to bend reality and surprise the brains of the viewers."
$150 3rd Prize Winner
Sixty-four-year-old Susie Holderfield from North Royalton, OH, was using her computer to research genealogy online when she began to admire the graphics she saw on various sites. Inspired, Holderfield taught herself image editing by using the software that came preinstalled on her computer. She proves you don't need Photoshop for great results -- she made this image with Corel Paint Shop Pro 8.0.
Holderfield entered three images in our contest, each of which took about 15 hours to create. This baby robot was by far the most challenging and amusing of the bunch. The yellow car and baby image play the most obvious roles in the composite, but exhaust fashioned from the seaside sky, serial number lifted from the grocery store, and living-room fabric for the mouth delightful additions.
"I laughed a lot doing this one," Holderfield says of her creation.
$100 Honorable Mention
World events may have been playing on his mind when he thought up the theme for this apocalyptic image, says David Birkbeck, 48, a machinist and motorsports photographer from Fairview, OR. This thirdtime Digital Wizard prize-winner completed his entire image the day before our deadline.
It's clear which of the four images he combined, but the focal point of the burning city took the longest, since he had to paint it all in using brushes in Photoshop CS2. You can view more of his work at www.daimage.com.
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