Using a texture to give mood

I walked through between a stand of trees to reach a lighthouse today. The trees looked mysterious and foreboding and I thought I would try and capture that dark mood. When I brought the image in to Photoshop it looked interesting but still not as atmospheric as when I aimed the camera at it. The photo is just a photo of a few trees. Yes, you can see that it is dark enough under the trees for no grass or small plants to grow but there is very little about the picture that holds the attention. I added a small amount of vignette to the edges and corners which helped keep the eye inside the picture but still it did nothing for me!

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That's when I decided to have a play with one of the texture images I have taken. I selected a shot of the bark of a gnarled and woody Eucalypt that is growing my my own backyard. The vertical patterning would suit the upright nature of my trees, I felt.
I have not used textures to any extent so this was an experiment to see what would happen.
The texture was pasted over the worked picture of the trees and I scrolled through the various blending modes to see what blend worked the best. Up and down through the different blends I went two or three times and the one that suited this picture the best was Overlay. At full strength it was rather too heavy so I reduced the opacity a bit.
Then I felt that the tree trunks were lost in all the pattern and what would they look like if I revealed them a bit more? I applied a mask and used a soft brush at 70% to paint over the major trunks and branches.
Liking this effect I did no more! It is a temptation to keep on doing more and more to a picture! So the layers were flattened and this is the end result.

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Now this image has loads of mood! Much better than the original shot!

AJ