Manipulating reference photos

[Jim Moyer]

A couple of weeks back I took a photo editing class and this opened up a brand new way to work with my reference photos. 

As you can see one of the many things I learned was the ability to take an elephant from a standing position in this photo of the elephant (The white areas) to a walking position giving the painting much more interest and action.

I hope you find this as useful as I did.