I ran across a fun technique for fiddling an image, called Amazing Circles. This image was made with an variation of this technique that made it into an ellipse. The source image for this effect was the ‘Sea Monster of Alameda Fair’.

For both Amazing actions, start with a square selection covering as much of your image as possible. To make a square selection, choose the rectangular selection tool. On the toolbar, change the style to ‘Fixed Aspect Ratio’. Leave the width and height to 1 (meaning square). Make your selection, and run the action.