Watercolor Coots
Hopefully this looks like a watercolor using bold colors. I first duped the layer and used Pixel Bender and masked back the eyes and bills. then I used Topaz Adjust and Simplify. I used Pixel Bender again, then I added a texture that was simply a crop from one of my clouds images with some pinks and several blues in soft light mode. I used Ps texturizer to give it a watercolor paper look and then I added a watercolor frame and gave it the same texture.
I t does look like a water color. The textured paper and border really add to the effect. Nice head angles for both coots. Seems just a tiny bit tight. I might reduce some of the texture from the birds if it were mine. (could just be mt laptop) Let's see what others say.:)Nicely done Judy.
Nice image and application, Judy.
Coots were the main shooting subject in my past, seemed like Horicon had millions of them! Like your representation, as the dark bodies are hard to shoot with wrecking the BG.
Agree with Denise on maybe a little more room. I noted it primarily on the top, but ... I might add about 1/2 more to the top of the water area, if it were mine. I don't have a problem with the positioning on the other borders though.
Nice edge effect.
Thanks Denise and Mark for the comments and suggestions. The water above was enough IMO until I added the border but I agree that it looks cramped now. I have a busy week and want to work on other, better images so I don't have time for a re-do from scratch but I can touch up the details on the birds. Mark, coots were one of my main subjects too. When I couldn't find any more interesting water birds like herons, egrets and ducks, I could always find coots at the Tenn-Tom Waterway here, which is only 3 miles from my house.
I reworked the coots image. I wasn't sure if I had saved it with layers but forunately I did. I ran PB again and Topaz Simplify and added another mostly blue texture and I like the color better, plus I lightened it. I painted the coots black to hide details and transformed and flipped the border to make it smaller and touched it up a little. I think it looks better.
Color changed!
Well the color went funky from what it looked like in Photoshop, it was not that aqua and it was lighter but then I changed my background in CS5 to dark charcoal and on here it looks darker, they all do! Oh well... no more re-dos!
Judy, I like the original better. I like the more detail on the coots, the colors, and the texture. Looks more like rough paper in the first one and some of that got lost. I like your image and concept!
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I like water in the repost better. I wish that there were lots more detail in the BLACKs in either version. The image could use a healthy CCW rotation. I do like the high in the frame placement of the coots.
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Judy, I think somewhere in between the two.
Thanks for your comments and suggestions Artie, Kerry and Denise.
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