It was pointed out to me by a fellow deviant that smart objects in photoshop are quite awesome and that I should try them out sometime.
I set out this evening to verify..
and sure enough these things are just about perfect for what I have in mind. ..thats what I get for ignoring the nuts and bolts of the program for so long..
Some of us have a harder time getting things out of our imagination...you're one of the lucky ones. I'm sure you will be successful. Chin up....Go make yourself some tea.
Being able to set up a lot of different distorted frames without deteriorating your raster.. on top of that they can be linked- makes for a lot of fast work that can be re-iterated upon until its polished. Tis perfect, thanks gain, : ]!