Even a goddess wants to dress comfortably sometimes.
This piece began with the image of the cloud that I found on Unsplash. I immediately noticed the indent in the cloud, making it look like a throne. I then masked the woman that became the goddess out of another image, placing her upon the cloud throne. Next, I duplicated the cloud layer and masked out part of the cloud. This removed a piece of it that would hide the goddess’ midsection. I then did the same process to her layer, so that I could mask out part of her arm. This made it so that her arm appeared to rest on the cloud. Using clip masking, I was able to put together duplicate layers of the goddess and the cloud so that shadows I drew in would not spill over onto the cloud. Next, with the trick of curves adjustment layers, I copied values of highlights, midtones, and shadows from the cloud to make the lighting on the goddess appear to come from the same source. Lastly, I blended the color grading and made blend-if adjustments to make the effect of the color grading more subtle. With that, I was left with the final image you see here, all the work on the lighting giving the effect of the goddess watching the sun rise.