Best Photoshop Technique ~ The 'Secret' of Photo Pros for Years! I will take you step by step through this quick photoshop 'secret' that pros have been using for years.
Adobe Photoshop 5.0 or later required.
Basic knowledge of the Layers Palette, Adjustment Layer Masks is helpful, but a novice could play with this and learn it as well as more advanced users.
My income made from photoshop doubled once I started using this method of enhancing images.
Great for bird, animal and people portraits, macros, product shots.
Table of Contents:
Use Shadows or Light for Better Looking Images
INTRO
BEFORE ~ A quick photo of my neighbor's fantastic gigantic sunflower.
AFTER ~ 1 minute in Photoshop delivers a rich professional photograph
Let's Get Started ~ Things You Should Know
Start
Curves Dialog Box
Grab Your Paintbrush
Great examples of this technique-Gorgeous photos, Too!
Reader Feedback
Use Shadows or Light for Better Looking Images…
I first saw this demonstrated at an all-day CS3 seminar -it is simple, fast, versatile.
Let's Get Started Things You Should Know (Step by step lesson to follow)
Familiarity with the following list of Photoshop tools is necessary to understand the procedure:
Layer Palette
Curves Dialog Box
Adjustment Layers
Masking
Paintbrush Tool
START HERE
Have your image open in photoshop and make your Layer Palette visible.
Create a Curves Adjustment Layer in the Layers Palette
Pull the TOP END of the Curves line from the top straight down to the bottom right.
The Curves dialog box now has a horizontal line along the bottom of the grid.
Your image has gone black. This is supposed to happen.
Click OK to accept the Curves adjustment and close the dialog box.
Back in the Layer Palette, with the Curves layer active, choose Multiply from the Blending Modes drop-down menu in the upper left corner.
Click on the mask thumbnail and Invert it, (command + I), making it a solid black mask.
Curves Dialog Box - (screenshots on web page)
NOTES: Your image should NOT be dark anymore. This is good.
Your layer palette should have 2 layers: Background and Layer 1.
Layer 1 must be above the Background layer.
It should have a curves thumbnail with a black mask linked to it.
Both layers should be visible (eye icon to the left of each layer)
CONTINUE
Grab the paintbrush tool
Make the brush large soft & round -50% opacity -0% Hardness -Really Big Diameter
Click on the MASK thumbnail in the Layer Palette
Make the foreground and background colors are the default Black & White
Start brushing using white to paint the shadows in, adjusting the brush size as needed.
Switch to black to reduce the effect of the shadows.
Change the opacity of the brush as needed for the desired effect.
I hope you can get as much out of this technique as I do!
Content for this Intel and the website it is published on are protected by international copyright laws. © Sara SIlver 2008
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Contributor's Note
Be gentle, it's my first Intel! Sara Silver 2008
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