Great advice, thanks  :)

Thanks; after reading your post I figured I'd try eliminating the black border at some point.  Then I got hold of another photo showing where I'd made a mistake so "at some point" became "how about now"  :P

The tough part is finding reference photos; some of the trophies I need to create are tough to find images of online.

Thanks - yeah, totally new to this.  I'm not terribly crazy about the border either, but it looked better on the forum background that way.  I'll try something else with my next one.