A Happy Giant Otter

I love it when I go to a zoo and the animals seem happy. The Giant Otter exhibit at the Jacksonville Zoo is one area where the all the otters seems so happy and were totally enjoying themselves. A great place to relax and just watch them while at this Zoo. It is very hard to photograph these fast moving animals, but if you are persistent, a good image can be achieved. Not a lot was done on this image but there was a lot of reflective glare from the water spectral highlights. That is why I decided to use Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Studio 2’s Impression – applied a preset created by Jai Johnson (a fabulous wildlife photographer and texture creator) called Just Paint Hummingbird Scene. (Check out her Artistry Beyond the Camera Episode 1 video for settings – she uses Topaz photoFXlab software, but the Topaz Impression settings are the same.) I made a few changes to the strokes in the Impression filter. Back in Photoshop opened up Luminar Flex – like it to sharpen when Topaz Sharpen AI does not work. Their Detail, Clarity, Structure and Microstructure filters are terrific for this. (These are the same filters as Luminar 4 – see sidebar for website link.) A little line clean up and a free Rain Overlay (from Book Cover Mockup Rain Overlay by Design Cuts) was added at Screen blend mode at 56% layer opacity. A Levels Adjustment Layer was used to add contrast. That was it. What a cute little fellow!…..Digital Lady Syd