I love the cutout filter that Photoshop uses. I think I've used it in almost all of my filtering pictures, this being the first. Besides that filter, the only other filter used in this picture is the watercolor filter. The use of the water color filter made the tree and plant background of the image too dark and almost dreary. It was not bright at all. So, to bring the saturation up to some nice colors, I placed a red saturation layer on top, bringing the greens out quite vividly and throwing in a few bright colors which, though they are merely leaves, look like they might be flowers in the bush. Though the area behind the young Buddha in actuality isn't that heavily planted, the use of the two filters makes it seem almost as though it is in the middle of a forest or thick garden. The use of a few more filters brought the bleak gray Buddha a hint of green, making it almost a buffer between the gray of the walkway and the green of the plants.
There are essentially two objects in this photo: the sleeping baby Buddha and the tree to the left of it. Whether one's eye looks first to the tree or the Buddha, the eye is inevitably drawn to the Buddha with the barely distinguishable rat on its shoulder. It's brightness compared to the darker colors of the plants and rock in the negative around it draws the eye very quickly, as well as the line that follows the rock in the background, down the tree, and along the rock next to the Buddha to the object it's head rest upon.
I feel I am progressing well in this class. I have yet to discover all of the tools Photoshop offers, nor have I discovered all of the uses of the tools I do use, but I use what I do know well. I feel I could discover more ways to add more layers to my pictures to make them that much better. I think I have sufficient skill at this point for most of the ideas I have. Though many ideas of things I'd like to take pictures of are hard to find in this area.
