Stages Making Woman In Clouds, graphics Image by Gale Franey The Graphic Groove Website

The graphic began with an image of a statue from Versailles which I found in my "Big Box of Art" collection of stock images.

I began experimenting with overlays of Blending Modes and adjustment layers . Eventually I found a color and mood that appealed to me. See image below.

	The graphic began with an image of a statue from Versailles which I found in my "Big Box of Art" collection of stock images. I began experimenting with overlays of Blending Modes and adjustment layers . Eventually I found a color and mood that appealed to me. See image below.
	Then I added a saxaphone and began to soften the features and skin, by using the Smudge Tool (found in the main Toolbox Palette) to bring the body to life, making it more human. I used the Liquify Filter to make the breast more round and humanlike. Scroll down to image below to view how I used the Liquify filter to change the facial features and to make them more feminine. I gave a curve to the bridge of the nose, I curled the lips into a subtle smile, I adjusted the jaw to give it a more delicate feminine structure, I reduced the girth of the left arm.
	I then began the process of cloning more hair. I Dodged & Burned the highlights and shadows throughout the image in order to bring more 3 dimensional feel. (The Dodge & Burn Tool can be found in the main Toolbox Palette). I took special care with the highlights of the breast, arm and face, in order to achieve a soft, ethereal feel. I also touched up the right eye, which had become overly muted. I spent a lot of time dodging, burning & saturating the bricks in the lower left corner of the image, in order to make them appear clearly in the foreground and I addded subtle color tones. I imported an image of an orange sunset, which I planned to use one lighting element, but when I began experimenting with blending modes, I found the light too harsh to use in the sky but instead it introduced a subtle peach overlay color which was perfect to enhance the hair, clothing, bricks and darker portions of the clouds. (this is a perfect example of the creative process .... so often you begin with one plan but it morphs into something else, much better than the original idea. I then used a Hue and Saturation layer to saturate the peach highlights. Scroll below for next step:
	I then duplicated the image several times, experimenting with subtle color changes produced by Blending Modes (found at the top of the Layers Palette), sometimes adding only very small percentages of the overlying blending mode layer and masking out the unwanted portions. (See Tutorial on Understanding and Using Layer Masks) I added a Gausian Blur, (found under the Filter menu) but then masked out areas of the Gausian layer so that I could retain parts of the underlying layer that needed to remain sharp. I left the blur on the skin in order to soften and bring it to life, aiming to take away the stony grain of the statue's arms and to make it appear more like human flesh. Scroll down to next step.
	I then added one small white cloud to the top left corner of the image, directly beside the dark clouds. I chose to do this in order to show contrast between the dark and light clouds, giving the image a more dramatic effect.
	Voila! This is the final image, after a few more tweaks, a bit more saturation of isolated areas of the image. I achieved the soft ethereal effect I was looking for and breathed some life & beauty to what was initially a cold stone statue. Mission accomplished ! - Gale Franey