So sorry for all the frustration. Not frustrated at you, frustrated at me for not "getting this".
Okay, so I went back to what I would call "Step Four Blur" and then when I clicked "CTRL +T", I got the dialog box that you previously
mentioned, but once again, for the life of me, I could not "right click" and get the "flip vertical" box to show up. I am on Layers Copy 3
and in the layers box, not the "smart filter" box, and still it wont' work....
So I tried the other way, edit, Free Transform, and then flipped it vertically and it worked.
I also turned on all the layers you asked me to turn on, and layer 2 now has a photo in it. Don't know how I got it (the photo) turned off
or deleted in my earlier attempt.
With all that being said, I think I am ready for the next step.
You are awesome!