Pixiq

Sometimes I begin the creative process with a preconceived idea, and other times I end up with a surprise.  The picture of this 'angel' is the latter.   I didn't expect this at all, especially the way I started.

This is a photo of smoke emanating from a single stick of incense.  The original photo was taken with a single flash placed off-camera, and the smoke was shot against a black background (velvet to be specific).  I then brought the abstract smoke image into Photoshop and mirrored it.  This is done by using Image > canvas size, and then you simply double the width of the picture in the dialog box.  The smoke image is copied and pasted into the expanded area, flipped  using Edit > transform > flip horizontal, and with the move tool selected, the two images are aligned perfectly. I enlarge the digital file to 100% when aligning the left and right sides to make sure it's perfect.

I was intrigued by the fact that this looked like an angel or some kind of etherial or Heavenly bird, and the aerial shot of clouds (taken from a commercial jet at 35,000 feet) seemed perfectly appropriate.  I used the blend mode 'lighten' (found in the layers palette in the pull down submenu) to combine the two shots such that the detail and form of the angel was retained and, at the same time, it was translucent. I selected the mirrored smoke image with Select > all and then pasted it on top of the clouds with Edit > paste.  When I chose 'lighten', the black background behind the wings disappeared leaving only the angel and the beautiful clouds.