It rained all day today so I had a bit of fun with this image from Niagara-on-the-Lake. I used several programs, including Photoshop, Topaz Textures, Color Efex, and Lightroom. I have no idea in what order or how I ended up with this and already can see things I wish I'd done differently. But too much work not to go ahead and post it.
Magical. I love it and I have a question...it seems reallly tricky to me to find ways to ground things and especially the carriage on right, but both of them, seem to be floating despite the grass. The horse seems more grounded
@jgpittenger I know exactly what you mean. I worked to ground the horse among the grasses, to cover parts of its hooves purposefully. Then, for the other carriage I actually purposefully was letting it float, as if the horse was thinking about the (horseless) carriage. It didn't quite work, but that was the idea.
A dreamlike image Taffy. The floating effect is the same issue I had with my lion image. It's strange how you can get the textures right in some images and in others however much you try you cannot ground the subject.
Interesting image.......you must have sent your rain over here, it's pouring today! I maybe head for the coffee now and give the cold Belgian beer a miss!
Taffy - great job! I can only imagine all the time that took. It definitely makes me want to know more about what's happening. Now I want to play! Fav.
Love the idea behind this one Taffy. Maybe if you put a bit more texture over the buggy on the left it would blend more into what looks like the mist and lower the height a little so that it doesn't appear to be floating in the sky.
If you used a 'grass brush' where the buggy and the horse blends into the grass, I think that will help to ground it bit more. @ltodd gave me a link to some grass brushes that will work really well with this texture. Hopefully I still have the link and I'll email it to you to have a play with.
@deborah63 Thanks Debbie -- and any link to how to actually use the brushes would be great as I never have used them in PS, only have done layers in Textures. And those are not recoverable, sadly, but I can work on this image -- just can't go back to any earlier ones without starting over (and don't think I could recreate it again).
@deborah63@taffy Debbie I hope you still have the links? I will look on the other computer for the the email. I would paint with the grass brush in a darker brown paint on its own layer on the bottom centre & left. The masking on the carriage middle bottom has has left a little of the original background - on the mask layer, use in 'mask & select', click on the refine edge brush on left select the smart radius on the panel and paint over the edges a little - it should work a treat if you have the settings right... https://www.slrlounge.com/select-mask-vs-refine-edge-having-your-cake-eating-it-too/
I like what you've achieved here and it's interesting reading the various suggestions... another one for you - you could go the other way and make the horse and carriages less grounded, convert to B&W, work on the shadows a bit and you would have 'Ghost Carriages'!
Seems more of a horse nightmare
If you used a 'grass brush' where the buggy and the horse blends into the grass, I think that will help to ground it bit more. @ltodd gave me a link to some grass brushes that will work really well with this texture. Hopefully I still have the link and I'll email it to you to have a play with.