Its all in the feathering. I selected and moved the slider to the right to actually include into the middle of the cactus...(you could see a mild gradiation into the center of the cactus) then feathered it about 200px....which gave it a nice gradiation that smoothly blended the needles into the sky.

Roman

Thanks Roman,

Yes- that is quite different from the approach I was taking. I will give it a shot.

Thanks again for all your help - I really appreciate it. ... I will get there someday...