Thank you all for your considered replies and comments.
Originally posted by SWEngineer You did a good job on the out-of-bounds PP, but I don't think the snake's pose quite works as his head is mostly back in bounds. Given the subject, I think having the head as the main OOB object is almost required. Maybe having the snake OOB overlapping most or all of the colored part of the frame on the right would help. It's already nearly touching it.
Edit: It just occured to me why the OOB seems so odd. The frame shape doesn't match the "mat".
Thus it's not as believable that the snake is crawling out of the picture.
I appreciate this thinking. Another PP I did, rather than using a white background was to use a black background which actually popped the snake better, IMHO.
Not quite sure how to make the frame shape match the matte unless you mean the color of the frame being closer to the matte so it appears the snake is more 'out of the photo'.
Note to Ken: This snake was taken with my Optio 550 so I was about 3 feet away, just out of striking range. It wasn't a problem though, as I said the snake really only wanted to get away. Considering my past appetite for the strange and unusual dishes, this was probably a wise choice on his part.