Last hope

This reference image was only use to get the shape of the lifebelt right and for insperation for the shape of the ropes and cut-ins (where the ropes are attached).

I cut out a piece of the lifebelt and used that for the ring.

I saved the lifebelt part in a smart object and copied it four times. A back and a front side, a top and a bottom part. It distorted them to cover the whole ring.

Using paths and masks I shaped the ring to fit.

I added shadows and highlights to give the ring a more three dimensional look.

I then made these cut-ins where the ropes are attached. Got inspired from the reference, but hardly used it.

I cut out a piece of the reflector strips from the contest image and saved it as a smart object. Copied it 4 times for each strip.

By warping them and masking them with paths and mask I shaped them. Gave them some layer effects to make them look more 3d as well.

Using the path tool - failed a lot when I used other masking methods. See source 1 to see an earlier version of the ropes (and the ring as well)...

• 1: http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/4805/09oldropeversionmv5.jpg

I used different parts of the rope to make one piece. The one on the left and the one in front are devided into three parts each - a middle and two ends (all made out of the streight rope) - and the right rope is made of the curved rope (three parts as well). The knot and the small bended ropes were made of the last parts.

A ton of effects were added then. The most of them are layer effects, but the shadow that gives to ropes a backside shadow is made with a contrast adjustment layer.

This step was a hard one. The reflection is made out of the other parts, but all the shadows and distortions had to be remade. Notice how you are able to look up underneath the lifebelt at the cut-ins. This step wasn't made perfect since a lot of the details where lost in a later step...

The water was made using a tutorial on water reflections (see source 1). I only used the water part - not the reflection - and then distorted it into perspective. I colored it with a hue/sat. adjustment layer on colorize.

To make the water more believable - which was a very difficult task!! - the last step was repeated. I made a new water layer using an action (actaully made a lot and chose the best one) and lowered the opacity of that layer to 35% to give it more dimension.

Back in the original image I added a sky layer (see source 1). I did this to make a reflection of the sky in the water and to make more believable. I flipped it vertically as well...

• 1: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/534187

I added the water with a 70% opacity to make the sky shine through. It looked very, very flat at that point...

...so by using the displace function I gave it some depth. The sky used the water layers as d-map (blurred to give it some distance as well), the lifebelt reflection used the same d-map. The water layed was displaced with an image of some small waves (see source 1) which I distorted and blurred a lot. The downside of the lifebelt was masked to make it look like it was in the water - used the pen tool for that.

• 1: http://www.huginn.com/knuth/blog/pics/pacific-ocean-galapagos_small.jpg