Jumping Whales

These Killer Whales were performing a few years ago at SeaWorld Orlando. I decided to place them in a water texture created in Corel Painter. I wanted them to look like they are in their natural environment. The biggest problem I had with this image was getting the lighting to look natural on the sharper whales. First the whales were painted through a black mask on top of my SJ Stormy Weather at Sea texture. Several adjustments layers were used to even out the tonal contrast and color. Then Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Lens Effects was used on a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) and the Vignette Selective using the Golden Halo preset was used. Nik Viveza 2 was used the get rid of the color cast and turn the spots on the whale white. The texture was copied twice and placed on top of the layers – first set to Multiply blend mode at 49% layer opacity, and then set to Hard Light at 21% layer opacity. Some water splatter layers were created to get the water splashing effect using Aaron Blaise Water Splatter Brushes (all his brushes are fabulous!). On yet another stamped layer, Topaz Lens Effects was opened up again and the Toy Camera effect was chosen – used the preset Awesomeness for starters and tweaked it to get the correct sunlight effect. The last step was a Levels Adjustment Layer to even out the contrast. This was really a lot of fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd