Handsome Fellow

Love how this beautiful Iguana looks up close – he lives at the Palm Beach Zoo in Florida and I think it may be a juvenile since it was so colorful. It took a lot of manipulating to get this image post-processed, but I really like the final results. Two images had to be stacked and aligned in Photoshop as some parts were more in focus in one image than the another. A black layer mask was added to the top image and just the parts needing to be sharper were added painted back in. Topaz Sharpen AI was tried on a stamped layer, but some bad haloing appeared so this filter was removed. On a stamped layer the Iguana was selected using a layer mask. On a duplicate stamped layer placed underneath the subject layer, the Tilt Shift Filter in the Blur Gallery was applied to smooth out the background. I had to reload PS2021 as the pins were not showing for these filters on my computer in PS2022. Not sure what the issue is here! Used Viveza to sharpen up photo and the new Spectrum Neo for the lighting-love the relight effect in this filter. Then a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer and two Levels Adjustment Layers (one for a vignette) were used to finish up. It took a while, but well worth effort……Digital Lady Syd