Santa Believing!

Had to post this little image of a Santa ornament that is very appropriate while I am struggling to get my new computer loaded up and ready to use. Windows 10 is really turning out to be a big learning experience for me after coming from Windows 7. Anyway, this guy is how I am feeling – I Believe I will get it up and running!!!

I actually did this as my first image on my new computer with practically nothing added to PS CC. All I did on this image was to use the ACR in the Bridge to do the initial image adjustments since I do not have Lightroom going yet. Next one of my Corel Painter textures was added in layer above and a layer mask applied. By using a watercolor brush set a soft edge and low opacity (20%), the Santa was softly painted back using a black foreground color in the mask. A Curves Adjustment Layer was used to adjust contrast, and on a New Layer a Glitter brush was used to add some structural interest into the background (see end of my Some Christmas Cheer and Resources blog for settings to make brush). The image was sharpened using a High Pass Filter set to 5.8 radius and then on a New Layer above, the Sharpen Tool was applied just to his face. Last step was to use two Radial Filters in the Camera Raw Filter to get soft vignette effect and direct focus to the Santa. Felt good to get back to working on images!…..Digital Lady Syd