Just Horsing Around

Please forgive me on the title - just couldn't resist.  Anyways, I saw a neat tip the other day on compositing text over an image using layer masking and was intrigued by the idea - not that I hadn't heard of it before, it just wasn't something that I had thought about in a long time.

I have had the past few days off from work (a blessing beyond all measure) 

so my wife and I have been spending some time in Bowling Green with her family (see the post below to get an idea of where they live - photographer's dream).  Earlier this evening I was looking outside at the great "golden hour" lighting around and saw that the neighbor's horses were at the front of the property (they are usually off toward the back).  After feeding the dog I grabbed my 20D and walked over to take a few photos.  It always amazes me at the size of a horse.  They are HUGE animals.  Fortunately, there was an electric fence between me and them so I was cool.  After snapping a few photos I wandered back inside and dumped the photos into 

Lightroom per my usual workflow and began sorting the photos.  One in particular (shown above) jumped out as a prime candidate for some photoshop action.  I went out and found a excerpt from Black Beauty, played with some color and layer masking (see illustration to the left) and BOOM - cool looking layer comp.  If you are looking for a step-by-step guide, pickup the current Photoshop User Magazine on the newsstands right now.