Finally!

Last night was my final Photoshop for Photographers (PHO5593) course. Trust me when I say, I am very happy about it! The course was long and I didn't really learn anything, though I was able to refine my Photoshop skills and I did manage to pick up a few shortcuts along the way. The instructor sounded exactly like Jay Ingrim from The Daily Planet which I thought was going to be super cool, but turned out to be awful since he didn't say things I wanted Jay to say (like how awesome I am).
I truly believe Algonquin should have a weekend course that one can go to and prove that they know Photoshop so that they don't have to take this beginners course, but they don't and you need the credit to get the certificate.
Anyway, during the class we were going to have a final assignment/test. I thought it was going to be small examples of the things we have done during the course. Perhaps three images; one old, damaged photo to restore, one image to correct colour and other photographic errors, and then another one that would be something creative. I was wrong. We only had one image to create, a composite one from about 12 space images and one image of a car. We were to make an advertisement of sorts that would show how "out of this world" the BMW in the picture was. We were able to use the image however we liked and alter them in anyway we saw fit. Below is my final image:
It is made from 6 images put on a nearly black background; Mars, the moon, the space station, the 'whirly' galaxy, the stars and the nebula dot over the i in ordinary and of course the car. That sounds like seven images, but the stars are from the larger Nebula image so I am counting it as six. I changed the colouring of the car as it used to be blue and merged the images together quite well I think. I am really happy with how well it fits together, especially since the stars were a last minute addition and really pulled the writing into the image itself. There were some really great ideas in the class and in the examples he showed us from previous years, but I really like how clean my image is and the instructor called it that himself. He seemed to like how I treated the images and put them together and since I was able to use editing techniques (including curves, hue/saturation, and cloning/healing brush), as well as layers and channels, he was impressed with my work. He gave me an A, which is a mark I was not expecting at all. I am happy with it though.
Now I just have to wait and see what I get in the course. I have been able to tell with the other courses I have taken, but my marks in the course have been so varied I have no idea what I will get in the end. Hopefully it will good.