| South Africa-based photo illustrator Barry Downard gave rise to his whimsical
notion by boosting Hue and Saturation in Photoshop.
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Downard selected one of his own photos
of the Karoo region in South Africa to use
as a background layer. He chose Image >
Adjustments > Levels to boost the overall
contrast of the image, selected the clouds
at the horizon, and made a Selective Color
adjustment layer to intensify the clouds’ coral
color. Under Colors, Downard cranked up
Magenta and Yellow in the Reds and Magenta
in the Yellows. He also used a Selective Color
adjustment layer to achieve the rich cobalt
blue in selected areas of the sky by increasing
the Magenta and Black in the Blues, making
other foreground elements, such as the
airplane wings, more prominent.
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For birds, Downard loosely lassoed a selection
from his photo, and then painted out
unwanted portions on a layer mask using a soft
black brush to create a smooth edge. He desaturated
the image by pressing Command/Ctrl-Shift-
U, and made copies of the bird at various sizes
and angles using Free Transform. For the bird at
the top left of the airplane wing, he selected its
wings and tail feathers, and chose Hue/Saturation
(Command/Ctrl-U)—pumping up the Hue and
Saturation until he had a bright blue. He then
increased the contrast to give the bird a starker
look and applied several small motion blurs from
the Filter menu at different angles, adding to the
kamikaze feel of the birds zooming by.
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Downard loosely selected an airplane
from a photo using the Lasso tool and
created a new layer for the selection by
pressing Command/Ctrl-J. On the new layer,
he pumped up color saturation of the plane
by first brightening the Levels (Command-L),
greatly increasing highlights and slightly
boosting midtones to give the wings a
luminous quality. He then brought out more
color by using Selective Color to increase
the Magenta in the Reds. To isolate most of
the Levels and Selective Color changes to the
right of the plane, Downard added a layer
mask and painted out the unwanted portions
with a soft black brush.
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He selected a cow from a photo, duplicated
the selection, and jumped it to a new
layer. In Levels, Downard decreased the
midtone values of the RGB Channel to darken
light patches, and lowered the Saturation and
Lightness in Hue/Saturation to darken the
entire cow. In a layer mask, he painted out
most of the darkened areas with a black brush
to create natural-looking shadows from the
cow’s turned head. “I try to avoid selectively
isolating an area to make changes; the effect is
often unnatural. Instead, I try to be sensitive
and aware of the way natural light interacts
with objects, and build my layers through editing,”
Downard notes.
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For a final effect, Downard
added a global Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer to weather the
image’s colors. “I wanted the feel
of a faded holiday beach photo,”
Downard says. In Hue/Saturation,
he reduced Saturation to –67.
To avoid eliminating the bright,
punchy colors of the airplane and
horizon clouds, he painted over
the areas in layer masks to reveal
the airplane colors and partially
reveal the horizon clouds’ colors.
The final image is shown at left (click to enlarge).
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More of Barry Downard's work can be seen on barrydownard.com.
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