Reflection of Blue Trees

This is what I consider is a rather unusual image of tree trunks and branches painted blue on several trees at the Jacksonville Zoo’s Asian Bamboo Gardens. There was a lot of bamboo around, but not in this reflection shot. This image took a while for me to figure out what I wanted to do with it as I really wanted to give that beautiful reflection justice in the image. Did basic adjustments in Lightroom, then in Photoshop added Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Clarity’s Sunny Day Blue Sky preset. Next the Spot Healing brush was used to clean up a lot of little bits of stuff floating in the water. On a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) the Topaz Black and White Effects plug-in was opened. What made this different is that the Transparency was set to 0.89 so almost 50% of the image in color through the black and white setting. In the Creative Effects section, Simplify as is and Diffusion set to a fairly high setting of 0.97. In PS a layer mask was added and the effects were painted out gently over the reflection which was soft and diffused already. On another stamped layer Topaz Impression’s Palette Knife II preset was added with no texture. In a layer mask, once again the reflection was painted out so it applied only to the top portion of the image. On a New Layer the Mixer brush was used to blend some of the harsh edges in the top part of the image – this evened out the colors a little. On yet another stamped layer, Nik Viveza 2 was used to draw the eye to the blue tree area. Two textures were added on top – one of mine that is a lot of light yellows painted in Painter and was set to Multiply at 70% layer opacity and one of Jai Johnson, Soulful Sea Breeze, set to Set to Multiply at 70% layer opacity. On top texture a layer mask was added and the top area was painted out so a vignette feel was created at the top. That was it. Just a lot of experimenting!…..Digital Lady Syd