Theme: Snow Cardinal

One thing kind of led to another in this image, which started out as an image of a cardinal in fall. I first desaturated everything except the cardinal. I then added multiple layers of falling snow using the tutorial here. Then I got the idea to add snow on the branches, and then just for the heck of it I decided to add some on the cardinal. :) Any comments and suggestions would be most appreciated!

Christopher, The best looking snow I've seen! Thanks for the link. The snow on the branches and bird-How did you create that? It looks very realistic. I think I would take a bit of the snow off the back of the Cardinal if it were mine-but just a bit. Very,very well done!!!

Thanks Denise! Appreciate your input. I'll experiment a bit more with the amount of snow on the cardinal.

To create the snow on the branches and bird, I first selected the areas I wanted to be snow on the branches using the lasso tool. I then made that selection the layer mask for a white fill layer, blurred the layer mask a little, and then made a levels adjustment on the mask so that the edges were sharp but smooth. For the snow on the bird, I just used the brush tool to paint directly on the layer mask, which I found was quicker than using the lasso tool.

I then added the following layer styles to the snow layer: Bevel and Emboss, Bevel and Emboss - Texture, and Pattern Overlay. The image above shows the settings that I used for each. The shadow right around the bird was created by painting on the layer mask for a black fill layer with the snow layer as its clipping mask. I also used another black fill layer to add a little shading around the snow on the bird.

Christopher, Thankyou very much for sharing this. Much appreciated.Can't wait to give it a try.

Good work with the snow Christopher, I never would have guessed, and thanks for the tutorial.

Chris thanks for the snow link...I like the snow on the branch, snow falling, cardinal image...but can't believe cardinal would sit there for so long...:)

great work sir.....the snow does seem piled a bit heavy on the cardinal, but it is rendered
with awesome shape/tonality

Thanks everyone! Appreciate the comments.

Christopher, I love the base image and the snow is so well done. Thanks a bunch for the tutorial - I can hardly
wait to practice.

Thanks very much, Cheryl! Would love to see what other people can do with my snow technique :)

This is what can happen if you sit on your branch too long -- Your feet will get stuck, and Christopher will come along and snow on you!:D

I agree with the above comments that the snow on the bird looks a bit "heaped on". A lighter layer or a dusting of the snow would have appeared more "credible".

Thanks for sharing this effect.
-- Craig