Photoshop Tutorials » Color

LOMO

admin — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:25:02 +0000

Simulate the colors of Lomography with Photoshop. In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to apply a retro-looking color effect to your photo using all adjustment layers. Find out how to make photos look as if they were taken with a LOMO camera.

Sample PSD (Photoshop Document)

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Lomography

Lomography Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Load a photo into Photoshop.

Step 2

To create this effect, we’ll be using three adjustment layer. One to compress the reds, to alter the color, and to create a vignette. Yes, you read that correctly. We’re going to show you how to add a vignette using an adjustment layer! But before we do that, we’ll add an adjustment layer to compress the reds.

If you load a LOMO photo into Photoshop and look at the channels, you’ll notice that the reds are highly compressed (high contrast). To simulate that, we’ll use the Curves tool and add more contrast.

In the Layers palette, add a new Curves adjustment layer.

In the Curves tool, select Red from the channel drop down menu and make a S curve like the image below then click OK. Now we have half the LOMO color effect applied.

The Best Technique to Enhance Saturation

admin — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:52:32 +0000

Make your photos look vivid with the best method published. This Photoshop tutorial uses a combination of three saturation enhancement techniques to create the best results. Follow this Photoshop tutorial to learn how to the best way to increase saturation.

Sample PSD (Photoshop Document)

Enhance Saturation

Enhance Saturation Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open a photo into Photoshop. To open an image, choose File > Open. The image I used to present this tutorial already has good saturation and would actually look worse with a saturation boost. So keep in mind that the original image will look better than the one with the saturation boost and that this is done for demonstration purposes only.

Step 2

First, create a duplicate of the layer. Press Ctrl+J or choose Layer > Duplicate layer. We will be using two saturation boosting techniques and a special Photoshop technique called adaptive saturation which we will describe later.

Step 3

First, we’ll use the LAB color method to increase the saturation. Choose Image > Mode > Lab Color.

Step 4

Open the Curves tool by pressing Ctrl+M. The Curves tool can also be found in the Image > Adjustment > Curves menu if the hot key does not work for you. In the Curves tool, select the channel “a” from the drop down menu and create a S curve like the image below. If you want more saturation, moves the two points closer towards the center. For less saturation, move slightly them towards the outer edge. Repeat this with the B channel.

This works by increasing the contrast on the two chroma channels. The LAB color mode separates the luminance (black and white tonal values) with the color. It creates three channels: By increasing the contrast on only the color channels, the luminance becomes unaffected. This saturation increasing method works great with landscape photos but not so well with portraits or photos with a lot of skin.

If you increase the curvature of the S shape, the contrast becomes greater. The image below shows how increasing the curvature and making the s-curve sharper will add more contrast.

Breathtaking Split Toning Effect

admin — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:03:40 +0000

This dramatic effect is an ideal alternative to black and white. Instead of being pure black and white, split toning creates a multicolor toning effect where the shadows and highlights are of two different colors. This effect, which was a popular film developing method, can now be done digitally in minutes. Find out how to make your photos look breathtaking with this classic split toning effect.

Sample PSD (Photoshop Document)

Split Toning

Before you begin

The split toning effect can be done much faster with the latest version of ACR (Adobe Camera RAW), Adobe Lightroom, and possibly Apple Aperture - please confirm this with me in the comments if you know.This Photoshop tutorial is meant as a solution in case you do not have any of those options. For example, editing a JPEG file with Photoshop.

Split Toning Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

As usual, begin by opening a photo into Photoshop. If this is your first time following this tutorial, use a close up portrait photo. This split toning Photoshop effect works well with portraits but not very well with landscapes.

Step 2

First, if you didn’t open a black and white photo, you need to convert the image to black and white. There are many ways of doing this but the easiest method with Photoshop CS3 is to add a Black & White adjustment layer. If you’re using an older version of Photoshop, you can also use:

Hue/Saturation
This method is for beginners. Simply set the saturation to -100 and click OK. If you want to be more precise, you can also go into each color and adjust the brightness.
Channel Mixer
This method is for the more advance Photoshop user who understands how to use the Channel Mixer to create a black and white photo.

In the layers palette, click on the new adjustment layer button and select the method you want to use to convert your photo to black and white.

I’m using Photoshop CS3 so I chose to use the Black & White tool to make my color photo black and white. Here, I adjusted the settings to create the best tonal information. There isn’t one setting that will work with every photo - you’ll have to adjust the settings yourself.