About the Image(s)

I've always wanted to create a fantasy outer space image, and finally found the elements to create it.
The background was a shot of frozen pond water. The light circle reminded me of a planet, and the texture made me think of space as filled with asteroids and matter. I moved the spot to the right, to give the dolphin a destination. I added the layer with the iridescence in Linear Light mode at 45%, and then a layer with the folded cloth at lowered opacity to create a cleaner background for the dolphin. I also added the aqua layer in Linear Light at 42%, after tweaking the colors of that layer. I added a layer with the dolphin cut out in Normal mode at 78%. I wanted it to be a little transparent but still let some of the colors come through.
My planet looked a bit bland, so I put the image with stripes over it, and used transform=>warp to shape it roughly into a circle, and then Liquify to move the lines into a more spherical shape. I masked it into a clean circle. I clipped a layer in Color Mode with the sparky colors onto the planet. I created an ellipse shape and duplicated it, making it slightly smaller. I inverted the sparky color layer and clipped different sections of it to each of the ellipse layers, then flattto ened them into a single layer to make the planet's ring. I used transform => perspective to make the top of the ring look a little further away, and masked out the part that went behind the planet.
Although I had liked all the texture from the original background when I started, it looked too busy for me at this point. I cloned out the "asteroids" and used a Topaz Impression filter twice, masking out parts of the second filter to keep the detail in the dolphin and the planet.
I then used a Topaz Star Filter to add the glow on the planet and the dolphin.