Hi guys, thanks for replying. I am actually interested in doing a different style of shadows--the ones on the pews are just a mockup to help me decorate in the mean time. I want to do more tangible shadows than just applying photoshop filters--something like DevinNight's awesome post here: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...f-the-Mad-Monk. If anyone has any links to tutorials for shadows of that style, I'd love to see them (or just tips? I am guessing he just has a layer over top that he manually paints them in on).

Anyways, thanks for the tip on the cloud filter, I fiddled around with that a bit and I like the effect. I'll see how the project goes, but I might go that route.

To answer your question, I am using photoshop--the image is in 300dpi, which is causing some mighty slowdown, as I am just using my laptop! I am by no means a professional artist, and this was the first time I had to use photoshop's 'large document format' for files over two gig!