Underwater Fantasy

This image took a lot longer than I expected to complete – but still a lot of fun to do. I had the image of some coral in a case at a SeaWorld Orlando store and wanted to use it in an underwater adventure image. It turned out totally different from what I expected but that still is a lot of fun to just see what happens!

Basically the coral was cut from the image using Topaz (see sidebar for website link) ReMask 5. It did a fair job and a lot of touch up of the layer mask had to be done once back in Photoshop due to the complexity and similar background color to the coral in the image. My next step was to add a couple PixelSquid fish into the image (see my How To Use the PixelSquid Add-On in Photoshop blog). One of my spiral textures was used for the background and the layer was taken into Topaz Impression where the Turner Sunset II preset was applied. The fish and coral layers were grouped, duplicated and top group merged to create a single layer. This layer was then taken into Topaz Impression and Edward Hopper II preset was applied to it. Some bubbles were added using using the Glitter Brush created in my Some Christmas Cheer and Resources blog was used to add some softening effect around the coral, and on some separate layers, Fay Sirkis’s Bubble Wrap Highlights Mixer brush was used to add in the more obvious bubbles. Next the eyes were sharpened using the Exposure Adjustment Layers. On a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E), Topaz Lens Effects was opened and the Reflector filter brightening the left side of the image and the Graduated Neutral Density Filter to darken the bottom part of the image was applied. Last step used Nik Viveza 2 to direct focus to the main fish. Whew! Hope you have a wonderful holiday!…..Digital Lady Syd