Well, I took the advice from the last thread in hand and tried to continue to improve the method... actually, I'm trying to improve the results.

First, I found some more brush stroke images to scan... making them with limited supplies meant they all came out basically the same as the first one, but I found some paper that was brushed in an art supply store and scanned it. That gave me a few more background colors to work with, expecially in selecting colors from different parts of the color wheel, as recommended.

I also tried some other blending techniques so that the resulted blending did not look so heavy-handed. Perhaps these are more pleasing. Finally, I have continued to try more types of images. Both of these were were B&W by the time I blended them with the background but the first started out as an Ekatachrome 6x6 slide of Upper Saranac Lake and the second was a Tri-X negative of an architectural detail of Grant's Tomb in New York (...hence the weird perspective).

The merging with the background on this image from Saranac Lake really emphasized the 3 planes of the photo: the sillouetted foreground, the long dock in the middle, and the trees in the background - - much moreso than the straight B&W version. I hope it is equally visible in the CRT version.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/WMC-img_313brushsm.jpg

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/WMC-img_310brushsm.jpg