Final:

First I cut natalie portman out of the original picture and then used the refine edge tool to get a more precise outline. I moved her to a new document with a solid color background then I added a subtle forest in the background by changing the opacity and the blending mode. Then I added some geometric shapes and made them very opaque. Next I added the northern lights and made them opaque and changed the blending mode. Then I used the brush tool to add the leaves and blurred them width the blur filter. Then I changed all the levels and stuff like the tutorial said, which I think made it look weird.

I just used a round brush to create the stripes in the back. I downloaded the smoke brushes from brusheezy.com. I used the pen tool to draw the earbuds.

I don't see the difference.

The easiest part of this was touching up the blue glow around the hair with a brush tool.
The hardest part was all the confusing layers.

Shadow

I learned how to make an incredibly cheesy looking image. But in the process of doing so, I learned how to use a blur tool and the brush too.