Ed's Free Photoshop Tutorials

CS5 Tutorial - How to Create High Contrast Black and White Photos

2011-05-04T21:28:00.002-04:00

Black and white photography is great and can really create a stunning image. Some black and white photographs look better when they're soft but other times a high contrast image with a lot of details is called for. This easy to follow free Photoshop tutorial will teach you how to create stunning high contrast black and white photos from otherwise mundane color photos. The process is easy enough for a beginner but provides information that is useful for even the most experienced Photoshop user.

We begin by opening our photo in Photoshop, if you need to do any small adjustments then do so now. You will notice that this photo isn't particularly interesting and doesn't have much tonal depth. It does, however, have a lot of potential. This technique works best on photos that have a lot of details such as the grungy surface of this building.

Some cameras have the option to take photos in black and white and some don't. Personally, I like taking all my photos in color because I can always convert them to black and white later. We do this simply by clicking on Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. Now that we have our black and white photo you can see that there isn't much contrast in the tones.

To remedy this we're going to adjust the Levels. Click on Image>Adjustments>Levels to open the Levels menu. This particular image was a little flat so I wanted to increase the shadows more than the highlights. Moving the black arrow right will make the shadows stronger and moving the white arrow left will make the highlights stronger. The image above shows the settings I've used but yours might vary slightly depending on your photo.

We should now have a slightly more interesting photo like this:

Now we can see that our levels adjustment has really added more tonal depth and has increased the contrast. The photo before was really rather uninteresting and the stronger shadows and highlights have definitely improved it quite a bit.

The next thing we want to do is adjust the contrast of the overall picture. We do this by clicking on Image>Adjustments>Brightness Contrast. Right now we're only really going to concern ourselves with the "Contrast" slider like so:

The difference may be a bit subtle but it is noticeable when you compare the two photos. We should now have a photo with some good contrast. At this point the photo should look a bit like this:

Now we're really starting to get a nicely detailed black and white photo with some good contrast. The only problem is that we have lost some detail and contrast in a few of the darker areas such as in the doorway. We're going to remedy this problem by adjust the shadows and highlights some more.

We do this by clicking on Image>Adjustments>Shadows Highlights. Here are the settings I used:

A little bit goes a long way in this case so I've only adjusted the Shadows 10%. Since the photo I'm using was rather light to begin with I didn't need to adjust the Highlights but if you do then feel free to do so now. Click "OK" and we should have a photo that looks a bit like this:

At this point we really have a great picture with a lot of gritty details and plenty of contrast in the different tonal values. We could, theoretically, stop here but I wanted to add a little bit more to really make the image pop and add to the contrast.

There were only a few places that I felt were still too flat so I decided to touch them up a bit with the Burn and Dodge tools. These two tools are great for occasions such as this and can come in handy pretty often. The Burn tool will make things darker and the Dodge tool will make things brighter. You can find them both on your tool menu, clicking and holding on the Burn tool will allow you to select the Dodge tool and vice versa.

The black arrows in the above photo are where I applied the Burn tool which was set to "Shadows" at 50% opacity. The white arrows are where I used the Dodge tool set to "Highlights" at about 30% opacity. Depending on the photo you're working on you may want to play with the settings a bit. This last step has really made the image pop.

Now, just add a border and we're all done!

I hope you have found this tutorial to be helpful and informative. If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment and I'll try my best to find you an answer. Now that you've completed this tutorial you might want to check out some of the other tutorials we have on this site.

Quick and Easy Color Correction in Photoshop

2011-05-03T12:42:00.001-04:00

Getting the proper colors out of your photographs can be tricky, especially if your light source isn't pure white. This easy to follow Photoshop tutorial will teach you how to correct color aberrations caused by the use of colored or off-white lights. This tutorial is useful for everyone but is easy enough for a complete beginner.

For this tutorial we shall use this photograph of a toy I have on my desk. The light source I used was my desk lamp which, being a CFL bulb, emits a light with a slightly orange hue. This hue has changed the colors of the actual figure and added an overall sepia tone to the image. What we want to do is remove this orange or red hue and have the photo represent the figure's true colors.

After you have opened your photo in Photoshop you're going to click Image>Adjustments>Color Balance. You will then be presented with 3 sliders and three check boxes on the bottom. We're going to start with the Midtones which should be checked by default.

Note: The numbers represented here are what worked for this photo, you may end up with different numbers depending on the photo you're correcting.

The goal here is to remove the orange hue by increasing the amount of Blue and Cyan in the photo. As you can see on the sliders, Cyan is the opposite of Red and Blue is the opposite of Yellow. Since we need to decrease the amount of yellow and red in the photo the theory here should be quite obvious.

Adjusting the Midtones should already show a great improvement but we will still want to adjust the Shadows and Highlights as well. Try to keep a close eye on the colors to keep from pushing the sliders too far.

Click OK and our photo should now look like this:

It looks a lot better already, we can see the Dino's skin tone is now closer to what it should be, his shirt is now much more white and the colors are more distinctive over all. The only problem is that now the photo is slightly over saturated and won't print out quite correctly.

We can solve this by clicking on Image>Adjustments>Hue Saturation:

The only thing you need to concern yourself with is the Saturation slider. Sliding it to the left will slowly decrease the amount of color in the photo and sliding it all the way to the left will leave us with a black and white photo. For this example, I've moved the slider 25 points to the left which has slightly decreased the saturation of the colors in the photo.

It should now look like this:

This looks much better than our original uncorrected photo. The skin tone is now very close to the actual color on the figure. The shirt is now almost completely white, the colors on his tie stand out more and the overall photo has a much more pleasing coloration. The colors are still rich and vibrant and we haven't lost any tonal depth.

This basic technique is simple yet very powerful and can be used to correct a range of problems caused by colored light sources. It can be adapted to correct photos taken at dawn or sunset, indoors, under fluorescent lighting or any situation where the light source may effect the colors of the subject.

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment and I'll try my best to provide an effective answer. If you've enjoyed this tutorial then please check out the others!

Tutorial - How to Give Your Photos the Lomo Look

2011-01-05T15:24:00.004-05:00

"Lomo" or Lomography describes a certain photographic technique that involves specialized equipment and cameras. The Lomo look has been popular for a while now and you will often see it in advertising and fashion photography. This simple free Photoshop tutorial will teach you how to give any photograph that hip lomo look.

To start we will need a good photograph to work with, since this effect works mostly on the colors in a photo it would be a good idea to use a picture that emphasizes color.

Step One

To begin we are going to change the colors to make them more lomo like. Do this by going to Image>Adjustments>Curves and in the drop down menu that should say "RGB" change it to "Green". Here is the curve I used for the Greens:

Now change it from "Green" to "Blue". Here is the curve I used for the Blues:

Now we just need to adjust the Reds so change it from "Blue" to "Red", here is the curve I used:

You photo should now look a bit like this:

Step Two

Now we want to increase the contrast to better emulate the lomographic look. Go to Image>Adjustment>Brightness/Contrast and set the contrast to "+70" or whatever might work best for you. It should now look a bit like this:

Step Three

All we need to do now is add a little bit of vignetting to our photo and we will be done. Create a new layer and set it to Multiply and set the Opacity to "50%". Now grab your Gradient Fill Tool which you'll find by clicking and holding on the Paint Bucket Tool. Click the Radial Gradient and make sure your selected color is Black. Click on the center of the image and drag out past the edges of it. It should now look like this:

And we're done!

I hope you found this tutorial informative, if you have any question please feel free to ask and I will answer. Now that you're done go check out some of my other tutorials.

How to Create a Cool Cyberpunk Avatar for Facebook

2011-01-04T19:59:00.002-05:00

This simple Photoshop tutorial will teach you how to create a cool Cyberpunk avatar that is perfect for use on Facebook, in forums and message boards or on any other social network you may be a member of.

Start

First you will need a good picture of yourself, if you are going for the cyberpunk look don't forget the sunglasses! For our purposes it helps to have a picture of your face but, in truth, this works for any photo.

Step One

Create a new layer and the set it to "Color" then grab your paint bucket tool and dump a nice Green color onto the new layer. When you're done flatten the image by going to Layer>Flatten Image. Your photo should look a bit like this:

Step Two

Our next step is to go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast and raise the contrast to "50". Feel free to use a different setting if it works better for you, the purpose of this step is to make the photo appear more like it's on a screen. It should now look a bit like this:

Step Three

Now, go to Image>Adjustments>Curves, we want to blow out the highlights a bit to help emphasize the idea of the photo being on a screen. Here is the curve I used:

Click "OK" and you photo should now look a bit like this:

Step Four

It's looking good so far but now we want to add a little glow around the photo. Click on the little "FX" icon at the bottom of your Layers palette and click "Inner Glow". Here are the settings I used:

Click "OK" and your photo should now have a nice glow like this:

We're almost done!

Step Five

Now we're going to want to add some text to the photo so that people will know who we are, you can add other information such as your website address or email if you'd like. Click on the Type Tool, change the font color to Green and click on the photo, move the text until you like the placement. Now find a font and font size that you like, I used the font "System", try to use a digital looking font. When you have your text exactly the way you like it go to Layer>Rasterize>Type, this will allow us to add a glow to the writing.

Click the little "FX" icon like you did before and select "Outer Glow", here are the settings I used:

Your photo should now look a bit like this:

Step Six

The only thing we need to do now is add some lines across the image to simulate a screen, these lines are called "Scan Lines" and will finish our look. To do this we need to define a Scan Lines pattern.

Go to File>New and create a new document that is 1 pixel by 1 pixel. Zoom in real far and go to Image>Canvas Size and adjust the settings so they look like this:

Click "OK" and go to Edit>Define Pattern and name it something like "Scanlines".

Now, go back to our Avatar image and create a new layer. Go to Edit>Fill and set it like this:

One more step, set this layer to "Overlay" and change the Opacity to about "50%". Go to Layer>Flatten Image and we're done! Make sure to save it as a JPEG and upload it to your favorite site!

Now we have a cool cyberpunk picture of ourselves to use as an avatar on Facebook or anywhere else we'd like. I hope this tutorial was informative, as always, if you have any questions please feel free to ask. Now that you're done take some time to check out some of my other tutorials. Thanks for stopping by!

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How to Make Your Photos Appear Antique

2011-01-02T15:16:00.001-05:00

In this tutorial I'm going to teach you how to make your photos seem like they were taken with an antique camera. This technique is neat and can be used for a wide variety of purposes.

Step One

To save some time we're going to start with an image that has already been sepia toned. This is easy and is covered here in this tutorial.

Step Two

Next we're going to add a little lens blur around the outside of our photo. We do this by entering Quick Mask Mode by clicking on this button here:

Now, grab your Gradient Fill Tool which you'll find by clicking and holding on the Paint Bucket Tool. For this technique we're going to be using the Radial Gradiant, this is the circular gradient which you can find near the top of your screen. Click somewhere in the center of the photo and drag out to the edges. You should now have a red gradient covering your photo like this:

Now, exit the Quick Mask Mode by clicking the same button you used to enter it. You should now see a circular scrolling selection marquee over you photo. To get the right kind of blur we're going to use a filter called "Lens Blur" which you can find by going to Filters>Blur>Lens Blur. Here are the settings I used for this picture although you may find different settings work better for yours.

Click "OK" and your result should look a bit like this:

Step Three

Now, your photo should still have it's selection marquee, if not just go to Select>Reselect. We're going to use this to add a little darkness around the edges. Create a new layer and set it to "Multiply", grab your Paint Bucket Tool and dump some dark brown onto the blank layer. When you're done, go to Layers>Flatten Image and you should end up with something like this:

We're almost done!!

Step Four

It still looks just a little too dark and we want a striking, high contrast image so we're going to bring out some of the highlights and we're going to use "Curves" to do this. You can find the Curves by going to Image>Adjustments>Curves, here is the settings I used for this image but, again, you may want to play with them a bit:

Click "OK" and you should end up with something like this:

It's starting to look pretty good isn't it? We just have one more step to go!

Step Five

Now all we want to do is add some vignetting around the edges. Go to Layer>Duplicate Layer. We're going to use a layer style for this effect so click the little "FX" symbol at the bottom of your Layers Window, the one we want to use is "Inner Shadow". Here are the settings I used:

Click "OK" and we're all done!

You can use this technique on pretty much any photo, you can even add some grunge and scratches to make it look like an old beat up photo. I hope this tutorial was helpful, if you have any questions just ask. Thanks for stopping by!!

How to Achieve a Miniature Effect in Photoshop Using Tilt Shift

2011-01-02T11:12:00.002-05:00

Chances are you've probably seen pictures like this, photos of a skyline or landscape that somehow looks like it's a photo of a miniature. This effect comes from a technique called "Tilt Shift" and usually requires specialized equipment. This easy to follow Photoshop tutorial will teach you how to achieve the same effect on almost any photograph.

Step One

This technique usually works best on images such as the one below, try to take pictures out of a window looking down on the street or landscape you wish to use, this helps maximize the feeling of a miniature.

Step Two

To achieve the right kind of blurring we're going to need to enter the "Quick Mask Mode" which you can do by clicking this button here:

Now, grab your Gradient Fill Tool which you can find by clicking and holding on the Paint Bucket Tool. Click near the top of the photo and drag it about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way down and let go. You should find your photo covered in a red gradient like this:

Now, exit Quick Mask Mode by clicking on the same button you did to enter it. You should now see a scrolling selection marquee on your photo.

Step Three

The filter we use for this effect is the "Lens Blur Filter" which you can find by going to Filters>Blur>Lens Blur. Here are the settings I used for this one, feel free to play with them so they work best for your photo.

Click "OK" and we're done! This technique is easy to do and can produce some really neat results. Try to play with the settings on the filter and try using different gradients to achieve different effects. It's also sometimes good to increase the saturation to get a more toy like appearance. While you generally see this used on pictures of urban areas it works just as well on landscapes and rural pictures.

I hope this tutorial was informative, if you have any questions feel free to ask!

Creating Rich Sepia Toned Images Using Duotones

2011-01-01T18:52:00.002-05:00

Sepia is the name of the orange hue you'll see in antique photographs and they work well as an alternative to Black and White photographs. There are a few ways to make a color photograph appear to be sepia toned but this simple tutorial will teach you the best method for achieving a rich sepia tone in Photoshop.

Step One

Open your photograph in Photoshop and do any post processing it may need such as contrast or levels adjustment.

Step Two

Before we make our photo sepia toned our technique requires us to turn our color photo in a Greyscale Photo. This is easy to do, just go to the "Image Menu", select "Mode" and then "Greyscale". Your photo should look a bit like this:

Step Three

Now that we have our black and white photo we need to make it sepia toned. We are going to do this by turning our photo in a Duotone. Basically a duotone is the same as a black and white photo but uses colors instead of black and white. This is easy to achieve, all we do is go to our "Image Menu", select "Mode" and then "Duotone". You will see that the are two boxes with color, one is probably black and the other may already be a sepia like tone. What we want to do is double click on the black box and select a color that is a dark brown, almost black. Now, click on the second color box and you will be able to choose a few different colors, the one I have used for this tutorial is Pantone DS 12-1 C. Click "Ok" and we now have our rich sepia toned image like the one below:

Before you can save your image as a JPEG or use the regular adjustments and filters you'll have to convert the image back into an "RGB Image". To do this just go to "Image" then "Mode" then "RGB" and you will be able to save and edit your image like any other.

You will find that this technique of using duotones offers a much richer look to your sepia images then you can achieve by using color layers and it more closely resembles an antique photograph.

But why stop there? Continue on to this next tutorial and learn How to Make Your Photo Look Like an Antique!!!

I hope you have found this Photoshop tutorial helpful, if you have any questions just ask and I will try to help. Now that you're done, take a few moments and check out the other find tutorials I have posted on my site. Thanks for stopping by!

Simulate Pinhole Photography in Photoshop

2011-01-01T17:13:00.004-05:00

The term "Pinhole Photography" generally refers to a photographic technique using home made cameras, the effect can be pretty neat but the process can be be a bit cumbersome. This simple tutorial will teach you how to give any photograph a pinhole camera effect using a few steps in Photoshop.

Step One

First you'll need to select a photo and open it in Photoshop, this technique works best on images like this one, pictures of building, streets, bridges, stuff like that.

Step Two

Pinhole photographs are generally black and white so you'll want to convert your image to a black and white image. Do this by creating a new layer and setting the Blending Option to "Color" then use the Paint Bucket Tool and drop either black or white onto the canvas. When you're done flatten the image by going to "Layers Menu" and selecting "Flatten Image".

Step Three

Pinhole cameras often do not have a lens and so their ability to focus on a subject is restricted, generally the center of the image will be in sharper focus than the edges. We can do this by entering the "Quick Mask Mode" which you'll find here:

Now grab your Gradient Fill Tool, which you can find by clicking and holding on the Paint Bucket Tool. At the top of the screen you will see a few gradient options, the one we want is the Radial Gradient, this is the circular gradient. Next to this there should be a checkbox labeled "Reverse", make sure this is checked. Now, click on the center of your photo or, if you're going to crop it, click on the center of focus for the subject and drag out to the end of the image.

This should result in your photo being covered in a red radial gradient, this is a quick mask, it allows us to use filters on certain portions of an image while leaving the rest of the image untouched. Now, exit the quick mask mode by pressing the same button you pressed to get into it, you should now see that your image has a round selection marquee. Now we need to add the blur effect. We do this with the "Lens Blur Filter" which you can find by going to:
Filter>Blur>Lens Blur
Feel free to play with the settings a little bit to make it work best for your photo. You have two options at the top "Faster" or "More Precise", the latter option produces a nicer result but does take longer to render.

This step was a little tricky but you should now have an image that looks a bit like this:

Step Four

Pinhole Cameras don't offer much control over the exposure times so we're going to simulate this by increasing the contrast a bit. Go to your "Image Menu" select "Adjustments" and then "Brightness/Contrast" and change the "Contrast" setting to +50. It should look like this when you're done:

We also want to overexpose the highlights a bit to further simulate the exposure of a pinhole camera so go ahead and open the "Levels" window by going to Image>Adjustments>Levels and slide the Highlight slider to the left until it reads 180, or whatever setting works best for your photo. It should now look like this:

We're almost done!!

Step Five

Now all we need to do is add that characteristic dark circle, or vignetting, around our image. To do this we create a new layer and set this layer to "Multiply". Now grab your Gradient Fill Tool, it should still be set to the Radial Gradient, make sure your primary color is black. Click in the same place you did before and drag it out to the end of the image, you should end up with an image that looks a bit like this:

Now all you need to do is crop your image so that it looks nice and you're all done!!

I hope you've found this tutorial to be informative, if you have any questions please be sure to ask and I will help. If you're interested in simulating antique photography I have another popular tutorial here: How to Make Your Photos Look Antique Thanks for stopping by!

Give Your Photo a Vintage Look

2010-12-31T19:03:00.000-05:00

While photography has come along way in the past 30 or 40 years people still like the look of vintage photographs. The vintage look shows up in magazines, on websites and in advertisements. This tutorial will show you how to take any photograph and give it that vintage look. If you don't have a photograph right now then feel free to download the one I have used in this tutorial.

Step One

First, open your photo in Photoshop, if you need to do any touching up then do so now. Good vintage photos come from good original photos so make sure it looks it's best.

Step Two

Go to your "Image" menu and then to the "Adjustments" menu and click on "Color Balance". Here you will see a few sliders, at the bottom there are check boxes for Shadows, Mid tones, and Highlights. Click on "Midtones", at the top are 3 boxes, change these settings to:
+50, 0, -20

It should look something like this:

Step Three
Go back to the "Image" menu, then to "Adjustments" and now click on "Hue/Saturation". At the top it should say "Master", use the drop down menu to change that to "Blues" and change the "Saturation" setting to -40

It should now look a bit like this:

We're almost done!

Step Four

The last thing we really want to do is to lighten some of the shadows to simulate a poor exposure. Go back to the "Image" menu, then "Adjustments" and click on "Levels". At the bottom of the Levels menu there is a part called "Output Levels" and should have two boxes, one that says 0 and one that says 255. Change the "0" setting to 10.

It should look like this:

We're all done! If you want you can crop the picture to be more square like and then add a frame to make it look like the first picture above. This techniques is simple and works well on a wide range of photos.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Related Tutorials: How to Make Your Photos Look Antique

Photoshop CS5: Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks (Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks)