01/30/2015 - Fields of Gold

The Daily Texture for 01/30/2015
Fields of Gold

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Today's Daily Texture {background} is a glorious field of gold with a horizon line and sky in the background.  This one is another perfect choice for those zoo animals you've photographed in the glaring sun.  {One of these days, I *will* get to the zoo on a cloudy day!}  Here I've masked out a tiger I photographed at the zoo and added him as a new layer on the top of the texture background.  I blended the texture over his feet so he looks realistic in the field.  I also lightly masked away some of his body {which in turn reveals the underlying texture}, especially over the areas where the sun was making very bright highlights on his fur.  This toned down the highlights and made them more golden than white.  In the end, I duplicated the texture layer and put it on top {in layer mode soft light at about 30%} to enrich the color tones a bit.  To finish it out, I merged all, then duplicated the image.  On the duplicated layer, I used Topaz Lens effects to add a neutral density adjustment on the bottom portion of the image {which darkened the ground around his feet} and also using Lens Effects, I added a gold reflector light adjustment to the left on the image, so the gold light illuminated his face more.

Below are two more images I've made using this texture.  

You might notice the above two images have a different look to each.  Using Topaz Restyle {part of the suite of Topaz software...which by the way, is well worth every penny you will spend on it if you purchase it}, I changed the color tone of texture layer to better suit my original images.  When you first play with the Restyle module, you might notice the colors are quite deep and harsh or overly saturated.  There is an opacity adjustment slider...I usually bright the opacity down to about 50% or less, so the color change is not so glaring and looks more realistic.  

The hawk being chased by the crow was photographed against a blue sky.  Using Restyle, I chose a color tone variation which had more blue in the sky and more green on the ground, and I placed the bird's wings upward toward the blue sky.  This was just a way for me to cheat a little on the masking around those wing feathers. :)  If you have blue sky around wing feathers, and you place the wings over a blue area of background, you don't have to fiddle with the mask as much to get them to look right.

The other hawk was also photographed on a blue sky, so I had to spend more time on him to get rid of the blue edging around the wings.   Since he had a deeper brown tone to his colors, using Restyle again, I chose a color variation of the texture which was more earthy-brown in nature.   His brown body over the original golden field was not appealing...now since the texture layer is toned more like his feathers, he looks like he belongs better.  I also added a gold reflector adjustment {Topaz Lens Effects} on the right and the bottom of the final image, so the field would pick up that golden glow in the same areas his feathers were picking up the glow of the sun.

TIP:  Changing the color tones of the texture/background can give you entirely different looks, all using the same texture!