Making a Colorful Koi

5/9/21

    When Helen first gave us this koi as a starting image from Pixabay the other month, the first treatment I envisioned was each scale brightly colored in a unique pattern. I did my coloring on PS for the iPad, as ,u graphics tablet is too old to have a driver that works on my current operating system. Coloring on my tablet is very soothing to me — add an audio book, and I can be lost for hours. Unfortunately, that happend again last night — I only found myself again when the birds started their chorus before dawn. Yikes! I’ll need a nap today, for sure.

    After I took this image to PS on the computer, the calls colored in cyan, magenta and dark purple looked somewhat garish and the out of focus scale, so I turned that layer off and started with changing levels, adding a gradient  and pattern overlays (from AdobeStock). There are two holographic patterns, a floral pattern, and gray marble laced with gold that add to the colors in V 1.0. I ended up using it as an art piece by putting it in a frame that I created on an AdobeStock wall

    Today when I re-opened the koi file to verify all my source images, I decided to play with those colored scales again. This time I put that layer on a soft light blend mode and dropped the opacity, hence V 2.0.

    As always, take care and stay well. If you haven’t already, get your vaccination(s) so we can eventually see smiling faces again instead of masks.