Winter Owl

10/24/22 

    Interestingly, the most difficult part of this composite was to get the three images that I used to match in color. I suppose, since it's a night scene, that the  whole image should be darker, but, let’s pretend it's one of those really bright moonlit winter nights. The flying owl, done in browns, was the starter image for a September PFCC challenge. It was from Pixabay. The background pine trees are also from Pixabay, and they were very dark green with pure white snow. The NASA moon had a golden tint in a black sky. The red barn, because this is a Barn Owl, is from PixelSquid. I was surprised that I had such a hard time finding an old gray barn facing in the direction that I needed for this image. Even all my old barn photos warranted an angle; they were mostly head or side on.

    I start all the components of any mash up by putting the individual pictures through camera raw. I adjusted each of them to have a bluish, underexposed look. That helped but I still had to adjust each individual component. I used levels adjustments and hue/saturation adjustments on everything. Then, I used a color look up table, moonlit night, on top of the whole stack. Next was an exposure adjustment layer to make the image darker. That made the image look a little foggy so I added some more contrast with an adjustment layer. The final adjustments were another color look up table, crisp winter and slight dark vignette.

    The mid-October Potters Market at SCAA's art gallery went really well! I understand that we had nearly 1000 people go through the show over the span of a three day weekend. Lots of pots, plates, ornaments and mugs purchased. The pots were flying out of there like they had wings. We had a packaging table and a checkout stand. The volunteers working there hardly had a break at all. Even most of the artists took a work shift. It was a busy day for everyone. Special thanks to all the PM committee members, all the artists and all of the volunteer workers. It wouldn't have worked otherwise.

    Take care and stay well