Beware of Eyes in the Clouds!

The "eyes" part of the image was created from the original image, in case you missed that at first glance. It came about by happy accident :D when I started working on it for “filter abuse”. I first used Topaz Adjust "ghostly" preset with tweaking to darken it considerably and then I was going to do Pixel Bender oil paint filter and I saw the fisheye filter in PB and clicked on it and moved it around, changed size, etc., and then I got half of the eyes part and the clouds looked just like an eye! Even had a black eyeball. So I duped the layer and flipped it horizontal, put them together and smoothed with a layer mask and painted the eyeballs blue then selected them and put them on a layer and worked on them with 2 interesting Ps brushes (one for the catch light) and a blue stroke, I think that’s about all! Other than adding the layer styles textures (Patterns) on both layers and outer glow in black on the outside of the eyes layer. And a stroke frame edge. If I was doing it "straight" I would have chosen more subtle textures to show more of the original image details.

Original image. This is a 2 image panorama made with a borrowed 50mm lens because I only had my 100 - 400 at the time, with normal Lr adjustments.

Great find and use (abuse) of PB. How interesting that you found an eye in the clouds with a "fisheye" filter. I love your results here. The layer effects really bring out what looks like a mask (as in Halloween, not PS) to me. I was thinking that the catchlights should be on the same side of the eyes - either both to the left or both to the right, but then, this is OOTB. They can be anywhere you want them to be! Very cool!

Judy, I think you came up with a fun look and a very interesting comp. I scrolled down and saw the original and Wow! It is so beautiful w/ soft color tones. You really changed the look of this image!!Lots of impact in your mask eye image!:)

Judy, bringing the PB layer back in a comp with the original really adds to the intrigue of the image. Enjoyed your tale of creation... wonderful Vision :)

Thanks Patti! Yep, I put the catchlights like that on purpose to add to the symmetrical look.

Thanks Denise! It was pretty amazing how darkening the image changed the look of it totally with the darker clouds going black. Just doing that made a pretty neat image! Maybe I'll do something else with it later.

Thanks Steve!

Judy, this is wild and I love it! Very creative use and abuse of filters. :cool: Finding the eye was a great catch!

Nice image and application, Judy.

Interesting abstract.

Thanks Kerry! I thoroughly enjoyed playing with this one! You may see more "fisheye" eyes in the future! It seems to create an eye in the middle. I tried it briefly on an image last night and there was a sort of eye in the middle.

Very creative, Judy! That eye effect is too cool! Nice work.