Project 7 / Layer Masks

For my first image, I picked a black bear photo I took in Juneau last summer. Here is the original photograph:


Here is the finished image:


I pretty much followed the instructions John gave in the video and the handout for the layer mask project for creating the shadow and midtone layers and merging them. When I created a text layer I used a free font I had downloaded called 28 Days Later for the text. I decided to change the color of the text from black and white to yellow. I also moved the tonal mask to the top of the layers so the text would be behind the bear instead of over the bear image. I experimented with different gradient adjustment layers until I decided on picking a green color and then using a gradient fill.

I decided to use a photo of a buckbean flower I took at the Mendenhall Glacier a couple of summers ago for my other image. Here is the original photograph:


Here is the finished image with layer masks:

First I duplicated the photo and went into the channels palette. I wanted to isolate the white flowers from the rest of the image so I picked the channel that did that the best which was the blue channel. I then duplicated the blue channel. I selected the RGB image and then loaded the selection so that it would select the flowers. I then inverted the selection and deleted out the background.

I decided to add a pattern fill layer and experimented with the different pattern selections until I finally settled on a burlap type pattern. Then I chose a color fill layer and picked a purple color. I decreased the opacity for the color fill to bring the pattern through.

I didn't feel the white flowers stood out from the background as much as I would like. So I went into the layer blending option for the selected white flower layer and selected lighter color blending and also the drop shadow option. That made the white flowers stand out more.

I'm finding layer masks to be complicated and I definately will need to spend a lot more time to really understand all of the layering and masking options.