Lucis InterplayArt by Barbara Williams

Creating the image Bird Sculpture
In this image example I wanted to add some color and texture to a monotone picture of a wall sculpture (below left). I choose to Lucis interplay it with an image I took of a bird (below right). The positioning of the bird in the two images was similar so I thought I could create an interesting interplay. Click on any image in this tutorial to view and download a high-resolution version of the image.

Image 1: Wall sculpture.	Image 2: Bird in a tree.
I placed a copy of the wall sculpture image on one layer and copied the bird image on tanother layer. Since the sculpture image is so smooth it would not take much of the bird image to add color. In order to preserve the original images in case I needed them, I duplicated the layer with the bird image (Image 2) and on the layer below it placed a duplication of the sculpture image (Image 1). I made all layers except these two duplicate layers invisible. With some experimentation I found that having a 22% opacity on the layer with the bird image merged with the layer with the sculpture image created an image I thought would work (Image 3 below). The colors were faint but discernable. I duplicated the layer with this merged image, selected the duplicate layer, and opened Lucis Pro 6. I used Split Channel Mode, and enhanced every color channel the same amount, the Smooth Detail slider set to 3 and the Enhance Detail slider set to 61. The Lucis-processed merged image is Image 4 below.

Image 3: The merged image. The layer with the bird image at 22% opacity merged with the layer with the sculpture image.	Image 4: The Lucis InterplayArt image derived from Image 3, Split Channel mode, with the Smooth Detail slider set to 3 and the Enhance Detail slider set to 61 for all color channels.
I liked the look in Image 4 but I did not like 1) that vertical line created by a tree branch in the bird image and 2) I felt that the bird should be more emphasized. So I had the Lucis settings I wanted I just had to make some adjustments to the bird image. Sometimes you have to fix and preprocess an image before you can mix it and that was certainly the case here. I used the cloning tool to remove that branch (Image 5 below). Then I processed the bird image with Lucis, Single Channel mode, with the Smooth Detail slider set to 1 and the Enhance Detail slider set to 95 to enhance the image detail. I did not want the entire image enhanced so I used layers and erase in Photoshop to erase in just the enhanced bird (Image 6 below).

Image 5: Bird in a tree with a branch erased.	Image 6: The fixed bird image. Bird in a tree with a branch erased and the bird enhanced with Lucis, Single Channel mode, the Enhance Detail slider set to 95.
Now I had a fixed bird image that would work when Lucis interplayed with the wall sculpture image. I repeated creating the merged image, this time merging a layer with the fixed bird image at 22% opacity with a layer with the wall sculpture image (Image 7 below). I duplicated the merged image, selected the duplicate and opened Lucis Pro 6. I used the same settings as before, Split Channel mode, with the Smooth Detail slider set to 3 and the Enhance Detail slider set to 61 for all three color channels. The final image is Image 8 below, *Bird Sculpture*.

Image 5: The merged image. The layer with the fixed bird image at 22% opacity merged with the layer with the sculpture image.	Image 8: The final image, *Bird Sculpture*. This was created using Split Channel mode, with the Smooth Detail slider set to 3 and the Enhance Detail slider set to 61 for all color channels.

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