Torn

[Blue_Tornado]

Please concentrate mostly on my smudging and color balance. But I would still like your opinions on the overall look of the picture too.

Stock is not on image...but you can find the credits on my dA page if it really means that much to you XD

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[Emma]

I love this one. The colours are beautiful and I think the balance is spot on.

Smudging on the body looks good, and the mane also looks fine. Personally I think the tail looks a little overworked. Start with a smaller round brush on a low opacity - 20px and 50-60%? I'm just guessing, you'll have to play around with it. Pull out a few strands to get the general direction of the tail and then reduce brush size and increase opacity to pull out some detailed strands.
Other things...a shadow might look good?

Other than that, I think it's lovely.

[Blue_Tornado]

Yeah I know the tail is messed up. And I have never learned how to do shadows (I'll have to ask Poet) Thank you for the critique!

[Emma]

Oh it's easy.
Duplicate the horse layer, and then play around with the light settings (reduce saturation and add loads of shadow and contrast). Then go to image>>rotate>>flip layer vertically. This should flip it round, then go to image>>transform>>skew and move it about a bit until it's in the right place.
Once you've got the placement, reduce the opacity and voila! A shadow!
If I'm too confusing then there are a ton of tuts out there.
Hope I could help.

[`Poet.]

I agree with Emma. But other than what she said, I think it looks really nice! I love the colors+tones that you used!

[! Z I L L A]

The colors are amazing! I love how they blend together and the general look of it.

When you have the horse still as a separate image, however, add an Alpha Channel layer and free select the parts you don't want. When they're selected, just use the backspace button to clear it.
When you're fixing up the horse, smudge the tail in the general way you want it to go with the default circle brush at a rate of about 80. Once it looks okay, you can use the second(or third) smallest brush at the same rate, and smudge the semi-detailed hair into the mix.

When I have my manes and tails the way I want them, I usually select the smallest brush, select burn, and add shadows and midtones. It will match the color of the hair so don't worry.

The hooves are another thing. If there are no hooves in the original picture, and you're not placing the horse in a grass, sand, snow etc. type of setting, then look for another one. If you really want to use the image, try and find another image with visible hooves that you can try blending into the original one. I've never done anything like that though so you'd be better off asking someone else about it.

LONGGGGG...sorry. I go into detail like... a lot...