Panda in snow

On one of my photo tours to China, I arranged to have three private sessions with a young panda in a location of my choice. It was a great experience, especially since the winter weather contributed to the ambience of the shots. One of the trees the panda climbed didn't afford an attractive background, although the animal's poses were great. So, I used Topaz Mask AI to replace the busy and distracting background with a snow scene I took the next year in Japan. The software did a remarkable job in retaining the detail in the panda's fur. My settings for the picture of the panda were 1/640, f/6.3, and 1000 ISO. To lower the contrast of the panda layer to match the background, I filled it with color taken from the muted landscape (using the eyedropper tool) at 25% opacity.