The nature of art has been described as "one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture".

Your editing has moved the subject from a snapshot to a very interesting artistic expression. Congratulations. The degree of edit couldn't be more perfect. You have created an ethereal scene which moves the imagination to the beginning of a story or a fond memory back in time. Your crop has concentrated the important aspects of the scene which draws attention to the center creating a sense of motion. One wants to follow the track into the landscape and see more...as opposed to flying off into the sky. Your artistic expression elevated the ordinary to the extraordinary. Keep up the great work!

Roger's item 2 is exemplified by this example of cropping with Picasa:
Even with a small photograph:
467KB 1600 x 1200 pixels cropped using Picasa preset 4x6 small print format results in:
138KB 550 x 827 pixels a much smaller file.
The preset sizes in Picasa can be added to.

Had the same problem using Picasa. You can crop in Gimp without losing any integrity. You can also size the image without losing any integrity. Make copies of several photos and open them in Gimp and play around...you'll be amazed. It's easier sometimes to play around before you read the manual just to get some hands on...then read for details.

I adore blanket flowers. They grow almost everywhere. Very nice photo illustrating their life cycle. Mine is a bit different as I use original photographic images digitally altered to enhance the nuances of natural design elements.

#62 Indian Blanket

This is straightforward and easy to follow:
http://knol.google.com/k/how-to-copyright-photography# and
http://www.betterphoto.com/article.asp?id=37