Dark Horse, Raven and Nightmare in the Haunted Forest

I finally got around into editing these photos of Raven Queen and Nightmare (Headmistress

Bloodgood's horse) in the haunted forest and since I did put a little more work than usual into

these I decided I would share a before and after here on our blog :-)

Dark Horse on Flickr:

And here's the before:

 A little close-up pict :-)

Before editing:

I just adjusted the lights and darks playing with contrast and then I played with the hues

so the colours would appear more vibrant and warm (look at those browns!).

I think that somehow I re-created the haunted forest scene in Disney's Snow White 

(when I was a child I used to think that scene was so creepy and scary but cool too!):

Original Disney concept art by Gustaf Tenggren.

The dress is from one of our BeGoths dolls, Storm:

 Let's give Nightmare some love with our pictures of her!

A lot of collectors seem not to be fans of Headmistress' horse :-/

they say she's bulky and that it's a shame she's not articulated (unlike Avea Trotter).

I personally think Nightmare's colours are gorgeous and she looks lovely in photos:

Headless Headmistress Bloodgood and Nightmare <3

Here's our Sleepy Hollow themed picture of them (Bloodgood is the daughter

of the main character, The Headless Horseman, in the classic American novel).

Hmmm I think I might have been inspired by Disney again LOL

Screenshot of Disney's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949)

But I love Tim Burton's adaptation more :-)

Last but not least I'll share a snapshot of the first photo's Adjustment/Layers
for those who could be interested:

(You can skip reading this part unless you're into Photoshop).

Signature is turned off on this one since I don't put it for Flickr.

I used a Vignette effect to darken the corners of the photo so the forest looks more scary and mysterious.

 The Curves adjustment layer was used to adjust the colours.

Here there are 2 Levels adjustment layers, one was used to brighten the photo and the other to darken

the forest.

With Hue/Saturation I made the colours more vibrant.

I brightened the eyes on the Eyes layer and I also fixed some hair flyaways and stuff.

Background is the original photo.

...
Hope you enjoyed this post ^__^

Love <3
Mariko.