Cascade step 05

Step 5: Color studies

In general, if your image works in grayscale, it should have no problem working in color.  I was pretty happy with the black and white version, but getting a palette I'm happy with usually takes a few tries, so I wanted to do a few quick tests first.

These were basically done with 'Overlay' and 'Color' layers on top on the image, with some Adjustment Layers here and there.  I wanted the Sun to be low, not quite sunset, but getting there, and the colors needed to reflect that.  There were things I liked about each of them, and in the end I came up with a concoction of all 3.

As I got into it, the image became darker overall and I reworked part of the sky into something that felt more appropriate.  Now I had a much better idea of the lighting which would help for building a model in the next step.