Beware of Eyes in the Clouds!

[Judy Howle]

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.

[Judy Howle]

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.

[Patti Edens]

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!

[denise ippolito]

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!:)

[Steve Adkins]

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 :)

[Judy Howle]

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

[Judy Howle]

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.

[Judy Howle]

Thanks Steve!

[Kerry Perkins]

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

[Mark Fuge]

Nice image and application, Judy.

Interesting abstract.

[Judy Howle]

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.

[Christopher Miller]

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