Montage Studio Monthly Challenge - autumn

Photo manipulation was what I decided to tackle for this challenge using an original photo taken by hubby overlooking the pond behind our home.  Fall sunsets are always gorgeous here.

I duplicated the photo removing the sky portion and changed the saturation and opacity of the bottom section to obtain the detail in the houses, positioning this layer slightly below the original giving the effect of a stroke along the top.  I also applied a bevel edge and used a blending mode of dissolve and sepia for the color.  For the manipulation of the sky, I used a texture background of multiple leaves along with a texture of frozen water as it would appear on a window pane.  (The most surprising part of this experiment was bringing out the detail in the row of homes by changing the saturation and blending modes.)