Belated Freedom Celebration

8/11/19

‍    As you can see, my blog is running several weeks behind the PFCC challenges, but I just had to show off those animated promos. ;-) You can see the original stock photo from pixabay.com to the left below. I tried for quite a white to separate the sky gazers from the background but never got it quite right in what little time I had that week. So, I turned to my old favorite, kaleidoscope templates from http://www.lloydwphoto.com/downloads.htm. Lloyd Williams has created several smart object templates to make those repeating, mirrored images that we enjoyed so much as kids. I coped the firework image to square to eliminate the watchers, and chose a template. There are endless variations for each template, depending on how you place it in the individual template and whether you chose to mirror the image in it. Be prepare to spend some time if you decode to download these templates. The time does fly by though.

‍    That kaleidoscope pattern alone, while nice, didn’t provide quite enough pizzaz, so I added a flag photo I’d taken in the St. Clair plaza (on the right). A simple blending mode, and a bit of masking made the perfect composite for the 4th of July.