Good and Evil
It's been a while. I've discovered an active local photography group, and my attention has been diverted. However, I've managed to do some post-processing with a new twist -- a bit of painting by hand. I'm not quite sure why I shot the original image. It just happened to be near the top of the sub-folder pile when I started looking for an image on which to try something with some plugins. The tryout proved unsuccessful, but I decided to try something else with the photograph.
ISO 100, 1/20 at f/3.2, zoom lens at 17mm It was a single exposure, and the sky was pretty much blown.
Adjustments to saturation and luminance in Adobe Camera Raw -- both increases and decreases to a few colors (mostly green and orange)
Cropped a bit off the right for composition
Topaz Simplify -- preset based on BuzSim (less saturation in addition to some other changes)
Deleted the sky easily with Quick Selection because it was uniformly pale
Alien Skin Snap Art -- Stylize Line Art to add the black accent/outline marks (not the heavy black shadows on the tree trunks and limbs)
3 Flypaper textures for a bluish/greenish sky
Nik Color Efex -- Tonal Contrast and Polaroid Transfer
Pixel Bender -- OilPaint
Healed a few bright spots and burned some outlines along the trunks and/or branches of the two foreground trees (where none were added by Snap Art and the outlines faded into the background) Using a stylus and letting pressure control line width was a great help.
Red Giant -- Knoll Light Factory to add the rays and some of the glow in the lower right quadrant; masked off of the two trees on the right and their shadows
Painted the raven on and added Outer Glow to the layer. Also added a radial gradient glow behind it with a different blend mode
The dove was originally symmetrical and atop a weathervane. Created curved shape with Distort in Transform. Used brushes to outline and color it. Added glow behind.
Curves to lighten image
3 different onOne Photoframe treatments for vignetting and edge effects
Uniform black gradient vignette, all edges
Angled black gradient diagonally from upper left to about the center branch of the foreground tree -- one layer with Soft Light blend mode; one with Dissolve for added texture
