Chef Mickey!

In honor of Epcot‘s International Food and Wine Festival, this Mickey Mouse topiary greets you at the entrance. I loved this image but it presented a real problem since the trees behind Mickey were essentially the same color as the topiary. That is when I decided to use Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Impression to get Mickey to stand out. In Lightroom used Seim’s (see sidebar for website link) PW4’s Magic Harsh Sun Flare Fixer preset and then his Radispot preset (radial filter was placed on Mickey’s head) to get as much contrast as possible between the colors. On a duplicate background layer in Photoshop Topaz Impression was opened where my SJ Watercolor Background preset (started with Watercolor II preset and these were the final settings: Stroke Type 09, Brush Size 0.50, Paint Volume 0.68, Paint Opacity 0.82, Stroke Width 0.44, Stroke Length 0.38, Spill 0.09, Smudge 0, Coverage 1.00, Color Overall Saturation -0.02 and Lightness -0.04; Red Sat 0.41, Orange Sat 0.43 and Yellow Sat 0.43; Lighting Brightness 0.17, Contrast -0.29, Vignette 0, and Light Direction X0.52 and Y1.00; and Texture Strength 0.16, Size -0.68, Angled Weave and white background color) was applied. Back in Photoshop on a layer mask Mickey and his salad were lightly painted back. This layer gave the colorful background effect. This layer was duplicated and it was now opened up in Topaz Simplify and my SJ Hawaiian Landscape preset was applied (my settings are Global Adjustments: Simplify Colorspace RGB, Simplify Size 0.29, Feature Boost 0, Detail Strength 0.66, Details Boost 1.00, Details Size 0.27, Remove Small 0.06, and Remove Weak 0.10; Adjust Brightness 0, Contrast 1.00, Saturation 1.04, Saturation Boost 1.32, Dynamics 0, Structure 1.00, Structure Boost 1.00; Edges Edge Type Color Edge-Normal, Edge Strength 1.89, Simplify Edge 0.58, Reduce Weak 33.00, Reduce Small 0.20, and Fatten Edge 0.00; Did not use the Structure slider – too busy and the Dynamics slider works like Clarity and it brought the background out too much). Simplify added some extra contrast to Mickey – a black layer mask was added (hold down ALT key while clicking on the Mask icon at bottom of Layers Panel). Some clean up was done but basically this was all that was done. As I keep saying, “Got to love Mickey!”…..Digital Lady Syd