[NorfolkMike]

Hi all,
have been "under the weather" so have not been on the forum much lately. However I have not been idle and would like your comment on my first steps into surreal photo's. Due to the size it can be found at http://www.norfolkmike.co.uk/photo_12935139.html

[Barbara G.]

This is interesting! Nice caption for the photo as well! Can you tell us more about how you achieved this?

Thanks for sharing!

[NorfolkMike]

Hi Barbara,
Thanks very much for your feedback
I used Photoshop CC for the work. I used a [photo I took of Hunstanton Beach in Norfolk for the background. I have a wood carving so took a photo of this, selected it and pasted it as a new layer, I added a mask to this and used the mask to take out the flare "light", see later. The eye was selected from my Granddaughters photo and also pasted in as a new layer.
i made a new layer from the background and made this into a smart layer and added a lens filter "movie prime" set to 125%, positioning the flare over the eye. (Using guides to help get the flare in the correct position)
Another layer added, using the polygon lasso tool draw the shape for the light and filled with yellow, lowering the opacity to 25%.
All blending modes set to normal except for the wood image which was set to "darken"
I then did some adjustment layers and sharpened overall for the final effect.
Hope this is clear
Norfolk Mike

[Freeman]

I love the use of colours here, Mike..is there a story you were trying to tell in the picture or some emotion you wanted to portray? Jeff

[NorfolkMike]

Hi Jeff,
No story to tell, just an idea I had. It started out as something different, a tree in a broken dish on the beach but my wife suggested it needed something else so came up with this. I was mainly trying out some new skills I had learnt since Adobe gave as CC for £8.75 a month.
Mike

[Clicker2014]

Hi Jeff,
No story to tell, just an idea I had. It started out as something different, a tree in a broken dish on the beach but my wife suggested it needed something else so came up with this. I was mainly trying out some new skills I had learnt since Adobe gave as CC for £8.75 a month.
Mike

Jeff this is excellent! Your breakdown of layers is very helpful too! I too like working with layers and coming up with abstracts. I had never played with that particular setting in "lens flare" so that has helped me. Again, excellent work!