The Common Crow, or Oleander Butterfly

Well rather, it started out with my photograph of the Common Crow, or Oleander Butterfly, on a flowering kalanchoe.  It looks much different now!

So enjoyed playing with this weeks PhotoArt Friday.  At first I was jotting notes, and then I realized I hadn't been adding the new changes I'd been making.  When I tried to recollect what came first (the chicken or the egg?), it became a little difficult to decide!  Was certainly fixed in a time-warp with this one; it was going places I liked, and was thinking along the way, what if I just try ...... and then, bingo! Didn't really want to step off; how much further could I go with this I wonder?

Instead of confusing anyone if I slipped up on the diagnosis; I decided easier (for me), to give that part a miss for this week.  My apology; I'll be more diligent next round.

What I do remember, is that I had used Bonnie's new free layer, Soft Echoes (love it; thanks Bonnie!), and also Happy Days, with some obvious tweakings along the way.

Then went on to add a PhotoImpact mask (the honeycomb look one), and added a 'soft edge' effect.

When I lightened the background intensity I found it took away from the butterfly itself, so the next step gave me the opportunity to do more with it as a solo "object", and then reposition that, over the background. 

You can see how light the butterfly had been.  Now it has been adjusted to suit and ready to move where it belongs.

Had also added a 'shadow' to the butterfly to give it a 3rd dimension.

How to separate the butterfly like that so you can change it?  

1. Just duplicate your original image to work with  (save the background first).  
2. Now 'erase' everything but the butterfly (or whatever it is you want to keep in your photo).  
3. By increasing the size, it becomes easier to erase really close to the outline, bit by bit.  
4. Then reduce it back to 100% when complete.  
5. Add a 'shadow' if you like.

You can save this 'object' if you want for other applications too; for me, using PhotoImpact I save it in a .ufo format, to preserve the object status.  I have no idea how PS users might adapt this though; maybe there is also a .ufo format within PS too?

Lastly, open up your saved background image, and position the new, improved 'object'.

Merge all, and save as .jpg format when complete.

And  the original photograph; my starting block.

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