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Step 7 I now decided to apply Curves to brighten up the skin but immediately notice that this causes the detail in the dress to completely disappear. To remedy this problem, I duplicate the Hemali Layer and apply Curves. An Important Tip When using Curves, always ensure that the curve within the graph remains an arch and does not come to any sharp angles, which will cause pixel and color distortion. The image to the left shows the curves applied to the whole image which blows out the color of Hemali's clothing, which I then fixed by masking out the clothing, hair and eyes, as you will see in the image below. |
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Step 8 I then apply a Mask to this duplicate layer to which I've applied Curves. I paint out the dress so that it once again reveals the original Hemali layer which is below. The clothing then returns to the original color. I do the same with the hair and eyes, which should remain dark and bright. Now the skin has been brightened and the clothes are once again as they were originally.
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Step 9 Now Healing Brush is used to eliminate skin discoloration and unevenness. The Healing Brush is located in the Main Toolbox. I also use Clone on some areas plus the Smudge tool at about 19% opacity to make portions of the skin appear smoother.
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Step 10 I also add a new layer of branches to the tree which have a sweeping motion which gives looks as though the wind is blowing. I move the Hemali layer over to the right and move the boat to the left, then apply a Mask to the feet to give the appearance that they are submerged in water.
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Step 11 To make the wind effect more convincing I decide to add blowing hair to Hemali. To do this, I add a new layer by going to Layer / New / Layer. I then begin painting on this layer with the same color as Hemali's hair. To ensure that I have the exact color, I use the Eyedropper Tool, located in the Main Toolbox. After clicking on the Eyedropper Tool, I click on Hemali's hair and that color then registers as my foreground color within the colors in my Main Toolbox. While at 100 resolution, I begin painting swooping and twirling lines onto the screen with a varying size brushes. I afterwards use the Liguify Filter to further move these strokes into a convincing hairlike movements. Then I afterwards use the smudge tool to further move the hair strokes into something that looks convincingly like hair blowing in the breeze. |
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Step 12 Next step is to create tension, drama and contrast, so I duplicated the rocks layer, decided to get rid of the sand in the foreground which seemed a bit bland and didn’t create the kind of tension I wanted. I duplicated the foreground rocks layer and set the Blending Mode to Color Dodge which gave a very bright and dramatic appearance. Then I duplicated the background, set the Blending Mode to Multiply, but it was too dark and intense for the overall image, so I placed a Mask on this layer, set it to black, which makes the layer temporarily invisible, then painted back with white only those dark dramatic areas I thought would add drama, ie: the sky around the ship and other portions to create a halo around her head.
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