Showing Off My New Hairdo

Just enjoying painting another beautiful bird. They are so much fun to do! This is a West African Crowned Crane taken a while ago at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm and is one of the regular exhibits so he can be seen anytime. He just sort of match this Corel Painter texture I had made, so there he is. In his document Topaz (see website link in sidebar) Clarity, Detail, and ReMask were used to adjust the bird itself. Then the ReMask layer was moved into the texture to place it where I wanted him to be. After that just painted the bird on several different layers using the Mixer Brush. Used two different Exposure Adjustment Layers, one for the eye and one for the beak to bring out some sharpness. Then duplicated the original texture twice and set on top – set one to Color Burn at 46% layer opacity and the other to Soft Light at 32%. Created a stamped layer (CTLR+ALT+SHIFT+E) on top and added the Topaz Lens Effects’ Toy Camera filter set to Awesomeness I preset with changes. Back in Photoshop that was set to 39% layer opacity. The last step was to add Nik Viveza 2 to really drill in on the birds face and head feathers. Hope you enjoyed my little bird painting…..Digital Lady Syd