About the Image(s)

This started with an early version of my August image. I almost deleted it but then kept it to play with later.
The first layer is the sunset shot, which I cropped and inverted. I masked in the moon at 89% opacity, lightening shadows (with Curves) and changing the hue.
It felt like it needed something more, so I followed Brad’s example and added a bird. I added the heron in multiple layers in different blend modes : Vivid light (100%), Linear Light (100%), then an embossed layer of just the heron in Hue (100%), Hard Light (100%) twice, and Soft Light (18%), Darker (99%) and Normal (43%). Probably not the most efficient way to do it, but I wanted to get enough detail without being too realistic. I also liked the colors that emerged.
I added a Color Lookup “Foggy Night” filter, then performed a Transform => Perspective to bring the heron and moon a little closer to the viewer.