The Best Way To Add Special Effects With Photoshop - Part 2

By David Peters

Okay, today we'll examine further design special effects that can be developed by using Adobe Photoshop, and so let us begin and discover just how. So you might want to give a soft glow effect, which gives a "romantic" look to portraits, and so here's what you have to do...

1) Opt for duplicate layer.

2) Then apply "Gaussian blur" to the brand new (top) layer. Make it hazy, however keep some detail.

3) Now mess around with the blend settings as well as opacity till you obtain what you want:

Here I will discuss a listing of the blend settings that exist to include in your photographs;-

"Darken" or "Multiply" blends Darkens graphic details whilst softening features and introducing a halo. Perfect for soft, expressive shadows.

"Lighten" or "Screen" blends Lightens the image. Nice for including high key or highlight glows.

"Soft Light" and "Overlay" Adds contrast and saturation. Useful for panoramas and still life pictures.

Black And White: By configuring the contrast high (curves) and color saturation low, you produce a metallic black and whitish look often seen in documentaries and subdues portraits. Do this by using Photoshop's "layers" as a way to most accurately adjust the setting in place.

Coloring grading: You understand how some motion pictures possess a "special look", golden brown, sick yellow-greenish, cool blue and so on.? You can get the same effect within your photos if you'd like. The simple way is to go to "Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation", click "Colorize" and use the slide bars to pick your chosen grading. If you are planning to get a well-defined coloration, it really is better to make use of the "Edit - Fill" function. Just choose the coloration you need and set the "Blending mode" to "Color". In either case, it is beneficial first to duplicate your layer before you start.

This can permit you to keep some of the initial colors by flipping the color grading down. Make use of the "Opacity" slider in your layer box to get this done. If you want a duo-tone image, just make 2 replicate layers while giving them different color gradings. Mix them together, yet again using the "Opacity" slider as well as the numerous "Layer blending mode" options in the layer box.

To provide the graphic a warm reddish-orange color tone make 2 replicate layers very first. Use "Edit - Fill" to produce the primary one reddish and the 2nd one orange colored. Set opacity to 30 and 60% respectively and select the "Multiply" blending setting for the superior (orange) layer. Fine-tune it in place to make it just as you desire. Also try including a soft glow, as described above.

Micro Contrast This is a really cool trick to enhance the contrast as well as draw out texture details in your photos. You can even apply it whenever your general contrast is already set to their maximum, making use of all tonal ranges right from jet black back to virgin white. The procedure is like the normal "Unsharpen Mask", but with some special adjustments. Go to "Filter - Sharpen - Unsharpen Mask" and set the "Level" to about 20-30%, the actual "Radius" at 50-100 pixels as well as zero for the "Threshold". You'll get a refined contrast enhancement that, for many pictures at least, works really well.

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