The Lion who doesn't sleep

This is one of two lions "guarding" the steps of one of my favorite antebellum homes here in town. The other lion is sleeping and you may see it later. The image was made with my iPhone but processed entirely in Lightroom and CS6 beta. I had to clone out the unsightly seam down the face of the lion which is made of iron and is a brick red color and cloned out other small blemishes.

I started (2 hrs. ago!) with a Lightroom preset that I bought and I tweaked it a bit. Then in CS6 I first used 3 stacked Nik Color Efex filters including vignette and cross processing (I think). Then I duplicated the layer and used Topaz Simplify but only really left it on the background; I think I erased at 88% off the lion. Then I added 3 textures and did a little painting and cloning on the eyes.

This is the original image.

Hi Judy, I like the subject and the use of filters. I also like the color/texture you created on the left backround. If this were mine I would do 2 things. First add the color/texture to the rt side and if possible add a small amount of room to the right.

Very nice cloning work Judy, good advice above....

Thanks Dave and Paul. That is a good suggestion and I should have done that in the process as well as adding more on the right. I can't duplicate that texture easily as it wasn't an actual texture but I painted over the column with a grunge brush. I don't know if cloning will work. A re-work is probably not going to happen right now :w3

Judy, I think you did a great job with the texturing and the eyes. I agree the right is a bit tight and I might try to darken the window area a bit more. How did you like the LR preset you bought?

Thanks Denise. I can darken the right side and will do it tomorrow.

The strangest thing happened with the presets. They were featured on dpreview and I bought them for around $16, half price. Sets provided for both Lr 3 and 4. The name was DSLR GURU PRO FX PACK. There were 3 sets in the pack and 125 professional quality develop and adjustment tool presets. I liked some of them quite a bit the few times I used them. Now they are no longer available and it says the software architect was released from the company! The site says they are working on a new set.