Babine

and to a few others, we still keep learning.  It's fun being part of those that contribute. I learn accordingly. Perfect.

As I stated Ray, a very subjective opinion. It's just that your smudged work is so good and so easy to get engrossed with.  Thanks.

Fantastic work Ray .. as per usual. Your posts are appreciated. Thanks. With it, here's a subjective interpretation.

Had a fun. Thanks.

My PSD file, which includes the text on a separate layer and the text alpha channel, is here. Go for it. And ..you're welcome.

Closer?

Along these lines ... ?

Extracted the text from you example, replaced 'I' with the 'E' and transformed (flipped vertical) the 'M' into place.

I prefer your 2nd one. I coloured the BG similar to her dress, a few skin touch-ups, curves lighting and selective sharpening. I also found the bracelet a bit distracting.

Hue/Saturation,  Blue cranked down and applied with the mask.

Selected the aircraft (Topaz Remask); saved the selection to an alpha channel, added the sky to a new layer below (sky gradient), cloud brush over this layer and blurred; used the saved channel to ...

A bit more motion with motion and radial blur.

Thanks for the play Ernie.

Curves adjustment layer to increase the RGB values as show, on a duplicate and applied with the mask; eyes opened with Liquify; blemishes removed (diminished lines) with Frequency Separation; ...