Editing #6

My image still looked flat, so I decided to add a faint shadows following the direction of the lighting I edited on (using shadows and the burn tool).

I duplicated the layer for two reasons; I didn't want to lose all my work if I was to do something wrong and also because then I could get an exact shape the same as the original hand, which would look authentic.

I then changed the Levels to make the hand completely black. I chose to do this rather than painting over the surface using a black paint brush, as it gives it a more even and covered surface, rather than realised I hadn't painted over a small section, after I edited the entire image and sent it off for printing.

I then placed the image behind the hand, by dragging the layer underneath the hand image. The layers I have are in order of what is in front, and seen first. Therefore, all my wires are at the top of the list, then my 'bone', followed by the arm, shadow and then graveyard background.

I then lowered the opacity to 24%, to make the shadow look like an authentic shadow.

Finally, I used the gaussian blur tool to blend the shadow into the gravestone in the background. The gravestone had been blurred using gaussian blur, so it felt right that it was used for the shadow too!