Night Flight

[Mitch Carucci]

Remask, Glitterato & StarEffects.

[Kerry Perkins]

Love the night sky and the bird flying through it. Nice job of matching the lighting. This reminds me of the old days on the Topaz forum.

[Nancy Bell]

This looks magical with the swan flying through a star-lit sky. The aurora-like glows are lovely, as is the glow on the wings of the swan. I like that slight head turn of the swan towards the viewer, as it engages my attention. I just started to play around with star effects and discovered that the effects show up according to the program and not necessarily where you want them. I suppose cloning them around, or out, is one way to control their location.

[Mitch Carucci]

Nancy,

Set up a blank layer. Fill that layer with a dark background (Black or dark blue, or whatever). Designate the layer as "Screen". Then use a light color for the star (I like yellow, but white or other light colors work. Then I use the pencil tool to prick a point on the dark background. One or many points can be used. Too small and StarEffects will not pick it up (experiment, but about 6 to 10 pixels). Then run star effects. Now you can move that layer about, and even reorient individual stars.

I cannot take credit for this, and I wish I remember where I read it... It makes StarEffects a much more useful plugin.

Mitch C.

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks Mitch for the very useful tip!!

[Dennis Bishop]

Great job on this. I think it's one of your best. The combination of Glitterato and Star Effects works very well, and I really like the colors.

Nancy, Star Effects places the stars on the brightest locations based on the Threshold slider. If the locations where you want the stars aren't bright enough, you can add bright spots to those locations and try again. I'm about to do that in the image I'm working on, now.

[Kerry Perkins]

I was going to mention the star layer technique, as that is what I do. It's so much nicer to be able to put the stars where you want them.

[Steve Adkins]

Super work with amazing ingredients, Mitch. Very cool lighting on Swan. Thanks for the star tutorial.

[Paul Lagasi]

This would make a lovely Christmas card, nice work Mitch.

[Mitch Carucci]

Paul,

Glad you said that. When I started working on this image it was for our Christmas card. I have been having trouble coming up with an idea and said I would not leave the computer until I had one .

Thanks.

M.C.

[Mitch Carucci]

Thanks Kerry, Nancy, Dennis, Steve, and Paul.

M.C.