04/20/2015 - Reflect

The Daily Texture/Background for 04/20/2015
Reflect

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Today's Daily Texture is actually another marsh-y background with beautiful light splashes in the sky and a reflective area on the water.  I paired it with -- of course -- one of my bald eagle photos.  The eagle had a gray sky, which was very easy to mask away.  After placing him on top of the texture, I then duplicated his layer and set it to soft light at about 25%, which gave a bit more contrast to his feathers.  Then I duplicated the texture layer and placed it on top, setting it to soft light at about 50%.  This gave more color/contrast to the background and allowed his feathers to pick up some of the colors from the texture itself.  The background was a bit too dark at this point, against his white tail feathers.  I was afraid if I masked away more of his tail feathers, they would totally disappear.  So I tried something different - I duplicated the texture background UNDER the eagle layer, and set that duplicate layer to SCREEN mode at about 25%.  This brightened the background just enough to blend better with his white tail feathers.  And then I called this one done!