The space scene is fine. As to the layout part... yea. The context box/nav bar are very plain. Do some work to those instead of plain black with a pixel font (!!) Also, instead of using the same image on both sides of the content box, try adding in something where you can put the thumbnails there instead of throwing them in near the bottom. Do those changes and see how it looks. [try adding more color perhaps]
The staff looks pretty good. It looks like another runescape image. The casting of the spell doesn't look too good, although if animated it could look better.
The fact that its a png isnt why its not showing up for you. Are you using Internet Explorer? If so, thats probably what the problem is. I don't use IE and I can see the png fine.
Pick any color scheme that you want, and Abstract style. Bryce [or any similar program] and PS only. Submit within a couple days, and then we'll get the votes.
That is the background I made for my entry, and is being used by Nitestalker. Are you so dull as to think it is possible to pass that off as your work?
Until the last few days, August has pretty much been pixel-only contests. I havn't liked that, since I don't make pixels, and couldn't win a contest. I think pixels are okay, but it gets out of hand when people only make pixels, and the quality of some of them are not very good at all.