Testing the Water

This is a sleepy Tricolored Heron reluctantly taking a step into the water on a beautiful hazy morning. Okay, he was really in a very cluttered background and I had to use Topaz (see sidebar for website link) ReMask 5 to cut him out. Then he was placed on one of my Corel Painter textures whose colors were changed using Topaz ReStyle’s Ice Cool and Fresh preset to match the bird colors and Free Transformed (CTRL+T) to fit the bird perfectly. I then proceeded to paint the bird with a Mixer brush to smooth out the grainy feathers. A duplicated copy of the texture was added on top and set to Multiply blend mode at 50% layer opacity. On a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) on top, Topaz Lens Effects Fog (Fog Ground Fog IV preset – Amount 0.20, Region Size 0.10, Transition 0.20, Angle 138.1, and Diffusion 0.40) was added to give a sort of early morning mist in the water. Next the Reflector filter was applied (Golden Left, then Strength 0.20, Transition 0.40, Position 0.59, and Angle 76.63) before going back into PS. The eyes and beak were sharpened using the Exposure Adjustment Layer. On another stamped layer, Topaz Adjust’s Brilliant Warm preset was applied to get the nice gray color back on the bird. A little Curves Adjustment Layer was added and he was done! Still loving my birds!…..Digital Lady Syd