Royal Tern with Extruded BKGD

Here's what I did:
Selected Tern. Copied and Pasted on his own layer.
Duplicated the background and erased the bird from the dupe.
Extruded the dupe bkgd at Pyramids, 10 px, 30 depth, Random, No check in Mask Incompl. Blocks
Created new layer between extruded background and Tern
Ran a Sunset texture action on the new layer. (Could also be done with a gradient)
Reduced the opacity of the sunset layer to 25%.
Since the Tern was bright white, he didn't fit so I added a Photo Filter adjustment layer above the Tern layer with Warming Filter 85 at 46% with Preserve Luminosity checked.
Lastly I Smart Sharpened the Tern a tad and S. sharpened the Extruded Bkgd layer a lot (amt 80 and radius 4.2)

Patti, Great idea to extrude just the BG. I like the pose and the details in the tern. I might tone down the one bright spot at the base of the wing. Ther gradient background is a nice touch. :)

Amazingly, I like the effect and the BKGR. But not the head angle:)

I had just mentioned to Paul to try something like this with his butterfly and here you've done it. Love the gradient work.

Like the BG too with pleasing colours and think you did a good job pasting the bird in Patti.

Lovely background, nice work on the tern..good one

Great treatment here, with just the BG extruded. Nice pose for the tern.
I might try moving the tern down just a bit - but VERY nice as is!

Sandy r

Patti, this really jumps out! Nice work!
Thanks for the tech info. It really helps me. :)

Nice work Patti! I really like the bg only extrusion and love the random effect in the upper half of the bg. Very creative!

Thanks to all! I appreciate all of your comments and encouragement.

Denise, I'm not sure I know where the bright spot is.

Artie, Sorry about that head angle. I'm still just glad to get a photo that is halfway sharp when I shoot BIF. I'll work on head angles a bit more. :)

Patti

Patti, a great idea with the bg extruded.:)