The making of AVALON
This will show how to create the glowing lady of the lake from my image AVALON.
The LADY in colour

We find our lady source and cut her out using the tools you feel comfortable with. Duplicate the lady and erase everything but her jewelry on the top layer, which we will turn invisible for now.

Select the lady again and we will turn her bright yellow by the menu (image/variations) and then hitting the "yellow" button several times.

which should give us this:

grey, yellow, red, cyan

To turn her white we need 4 layers. So make 3 more duplicates of our yellow lady. The four layers we need from bottom to top are grey, yellow, red, cyan:

GREY LAYER:
---------------------------------
Select the bottom layer and on the top menu bar select
(image/adjustments/desaturate) and in the layer pallet keep the setting at NORMAL and opacity 100%

YELLOW LAYER:
----------------------------------
Layer two is already yellow but we need the layer pallet drop down menu set to SCREEN and the opacity set to about 70%

RED LAYER:
-----------------------------------
Layer Three is still yellow so on the top menu bar select
(image/adjustments/hue-saturation) and in the pop-up menu
move the HUE slider to about -30
to make the lady a nice tomato red colour.
Set the layer pallet to SCREEN with opacity about 85%

CYAN(Turquoise) LAYER:
------------------------------------------
We select layer 4 and change it just like the red layer (image/adjustments/hue-saturation) but move the slider the other way to +146. Set the layer pallet to SCREEN with opacity about 50%




The stack of colours

Your image should now consist of 5 layers all stacked directly above one another so you only see one image of the lady From bottom to top: grey, yellow, red, cyan, and the invisble jewelry layer on top.

(in the sample the images on the right are just to show the layer order and shouldn't be in yours, the lady you have should only be white)


Now merge the visible layers:
(layers/merge visible)

At this point you can tweak the image to get it a nice ivory colour with lots of contrast using various things if you want.
Turn the jewelry layer back to visible and merge the image again.
Now we can drag it to the background.

For things to glow we need a dark backgroud for contrast so tweaked the pond for a nice contrast.

Drag the lady to the background and resize to fit.
The hand position doesn't look right so we can rearrange her a
bit to make her fit better.

First erase the arm on the left.
Select the arm on the right and put it on a separate layer from the body (i used the polygon tool to select only the arm and then cut and paste).
Duplicate the Arm, and then flip it over and make it the left side arm as well.
you can resize them a bit to make it look better.



Water reflects, so we have to duplicate all the body parts and flip one copy of each (use the lower layers of the duplication). Slide them into place to make a nice reflection.

The reflection is too harsh, so in the layers pallet
change the setting to OVERLAY and opacity to about 50%

Merge the body parts and make one duplicate copy.



Glow requires some blur, so select the top layer and on the top menu bar select
(filter/blur/gaussian blur) and set the radius to 3 pixels in the blur pop up)
In the layers pallet, set the blurred copy to SCREEN at opacity 65%

Make a new empty layer under the 2 lady layers and select a soft brush about the size of the lady's head. Use the eyedropper tool to select a medium grey from the water and then run the brush around the outside of the body's perimeter to make a halo of glow. Set this layer to SCREEN in the layers pallet.

Select the backgroud and select a chuck of the waterfall with lots of droplets. Paste this selection on the top of all the layers and centre where the lady meets the water.
Use the magic wand to select the white droplets and delete the rest by going to the top menu bar and choosing (select/inverse) then (edit/cut)

Use the clone tool to make more droplets on this layer, and fiddle with it to get a nice spash shape.

Duplicate the spash and set the top layer to SCREEN in the layers pallet


Fog
We need more fog so create a new empty layer and make it the top layer. Use the eyedropper to select a medium grey from the water and then choose a giant 400-600 pixels wide soft brush

and give the scene a big stroke or two across the middle filling most of the image with grey. Set this fog layer to SCREEN in the layers pallet.

contrast
Depending on your monitor you may need a darker or lighter image so merge all the layers.
On the top menu bar select:
(image/adjustments/selective colour)
which gets you a pop-up window.

in the drop down menu change the seletion to WHITE
and then drag the bottom slider to the right until your contrast is pleasing on the screen.

You can then tweak everything making the seams match better along the arms, distorting the splash and reflection, and adding more ambient light on the rocks from the glowing lady.

The sword is done the same way as making the lady glow, so i will just add that in hope you had fun. Now you can just add the lady of the lake to a larger background and create AVALON.