The Pond Fairy…is always watching you

The Pond Fairy was a lot of fun to create. The original image was a lily pad pond image taken at the Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens. The sun appeared in the water as a brilliant white glare where the face is located. The fairy face is made from a brush I created from a model’s face. Corel Painter’s ParticleShop Photoshop plug-in was opened and the Cluster brush set to a bright yellow with the Glow checked and was painted on the plant on the left side and little on the tips of the lily pads. A texture from 2 Lil Owl (see sidebar for website link) called Mosaic Set Aqua Grunge – this is one of her best sets in my opinion – was applied and set to Subtract blend mode at 19%layer opacity. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Lens Effects was opened and the Diffusion filter was applied to really soften up her face and some of the sharp lily lines. Then it was removed in part of the image with a layer mask. Topaz Restyle was opened and a preset was made of the image at this point. Then the actual image sliders were changed to get a little bit different color palette. This is a great way to get the colors just like you want them, especially if they are pretty close to what you like. The other presets just did not work with this image. (See my How to Use a Topaz ReStyle Trick for Improving Your Image blog for how to do this.) A few splats were placed on a New Layer to give a little fairy dust and water bubble look. On a composite layer on top (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) and opened Nik Color Efex Pro 4 – used Detail Extractor, Glamour Glow and Midnight filters. This layer was set to Multiply blend mode and 24% layer opacity. A group was created for the face layers where the eyes, cheeks and lips were painted. Also the clover hat was added to her image here.  This was from my favorite object site – PixelSquid. The fish are from an image taken in Hawaii at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. It was layered on top of the water lily image, then free transformed to fit the pond area. A Black and White Adjustment Layer and Levels Adjustment Layer were set to get the correct tone and color in them. A layer mask was used to fine tune the fish into the area. Nik Viveza 2 was opened to adjust the focus. The text is a free font called Viner Hand ITC. Quite a few steps but lots of fun. So next time you look into a pond, check out The Pond Fairy who will be watching you…..Digital Lady Syd