Streams of dusty light Photoshop tutorial

Streams of dusty light tutorial by Battle Farm We will use this picture that I took in the Arlington Cemetary for the tutorial.

Step 1: Go to Select>Color Range

Step 2: Make sure you have the Selection Radio button selected, select the sampled colors box, and choose highlights. Click ok

Step 3: Hit Ctrl + J (This will make a new layer by grabbing only what was selected in the previous layer) Step 4: Hit Ctrl + J again or just duplicate the top layer.

Step 5: With the top layer selected, go to Filter>Radial Blur.

Step 6: Take the amount all the way to 100, select Zoom, and select Best quality. Now the most important part of the whole process is that you position the center of the blur at the direction of the source of light. For instance in our picture our source of light is coming from the almost the center of the left side of the image, so we will position the radial blur there. Now click ok.

Step 7: Now hit Ctrl + F (This is a shortcut that applies the last filter to the layer) 2 more time, or simply repeat the previous step 2 more times. Step 8: With the top layer still selected, Hit Ctrl + J 2 more times, or simply duplicate the top layer 2 more times. (If the light is still not showing up well, duplicate until you get the desired amount of light) Step 9: Merge all of the 3 zoomed layers into one. (You can do this by hitting Ctrl + E twice. Make sure you have the top layer selected, or you will merge the wrong layers.)

Step 10: With the top layer still selected (The ones we just merged), Go to Filter>Gaussian Blur.

Step 11: Select a radius of 1.5 and click ok

Step 12: You will have a bit of excessive blur so you can touch that up by using a soft edge brush, and using the edges to lightly take away the excess. Press E, or go to your tools menu and select the brush. Step 13: Go to your brush Selection at the top, and select a 100 pixel soft edge round brush. Step 14: Now just take the edge around the excess and gently take out the excess. Step 15: Select the layer under the top layer.

Step 16: Hit Ctrl + L to pull up your levels or go to Image>Adjustments>Levels

Step 17: Pull the third tab to the right over to the left until you reach a bright hi-light for the image. Now click ok.

Step 18: With the middle layer still selected, go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Step 19: Change the radius to 2.5 and click ok. Thats it, you are done. If you want to give it more of a real effect, I would recommend grabbing your very bottom layer (The original, or base layer), and

adjusting the levels so is becomes a bit darker (Try sliding your middle slider to the right.

Photoshop Fine Art Effects Cookbook "Cross-Processing" Cross-processing is developing color print or slide film in the wrong chemicals for example, color negative film in slide chemicals ("C-41 as E-6") or slide film by the color negative process ("E-6 as C-41"). Not surprisingly, this causes wild color and contrast shifts and requires lots of trial and error. But for a period in the 1980s and 1990s, crossprocessed images were very much the vogue, with Nick Knight's fashion and studio work being arguably the most influential. With many possible permutations of film stock and processing technique, there is no single, identifiable, cross-processed appearance. The most common combination is C-41 as E-6, in which slide chemistry is used to process color negative film, and it's a quick job to imitate it in Photoshop. Image contrast is usually high with blown-out highlights, while the shadows tend toward dense shades of blue. Reds tend to be magenta, lips almost purple, and highlights normally have a yellow-green color cast. As for subject matter, try fashion or portraiture, but there's no need to restrict your imagination. I chose an elegant outdoor portrait shot the skin tones and red lipstick look especially striking in cross-processed images.

STEP 1 With the original image open, click the "Create new fill or new adjustment layer" icon in the Layers palette and select Curves. From the Channel drop-down box, select the Red channel and drag the top right of the curve a little to the left. Then drag a couple of points on the curve so that it forms a very gentle S darkening the shadows and brightening the Red channel's highlights.

TIP To save your curve to a file on your hard drive, just click the Save button. Applying the same cross-processing adjustment to other images is a simple matter of loading it with the Load button in the Curves dialog box. STEP 2 Select the Blue channel and drag the curve's top-right point downward. It doesn't need to be much just enough to take some blue out of the highlights. Then drag the curve's bottom-right point up a little, blocking up the Blue channel in the shadows.

STEP 3 In the Green channel, add another gentle S curve increasing the contrast, especially in the highlights.

STEP 4 Fine-tune the channel curves to suit your image, but leave the combined RGB curve untouched. Focus on the color balance rather than the contrast, which you can fix later, in step 6.

STEP 5 Blown highlights are a common if not always welcome characteristic of C-41 as E6 cross-processing. They should result from the contrast-increasing curves used in steps 13, but in Photoshop it's possible to eliminate them if you wish. Try changing the Curves adjustment layer's blending mode to Color and the image will combine the color shifts with the image's original luminosity.

STEP 6 If you need to fine-tune the image contrast, add a Curves adjustment layer and set its blending mode to Luminosity so it doesn't cause any further color shifts.

STEP 7 Another optional final step is to add a yellow color cast to the picture. In the Layers palette, click the "Create new fill or new adjustment layer" icon and choose Solid Color. Select a yellow-green and click OK, then reduce the new layer's opacity 10% is as much as you'll need.

FINAL IMAGE This image was digitally captured and had daylight white balance. In Photoshop you can simulate 1980s-style cross-processing and add the film rebate (border) another typical affectation of the era.

How To Make Digital Photos Look Like Lomo Photography

From the first time I saw a photo that looked like this, I wanted to shoot one of my own. But, for the longest time I couldnt figure it out how people took photos look like this. Then one day searching the web, I realized I needed a Lomo LC-A camera. This is a Russian made camera that was a knock off of another camera. It is poorly made and by Japanese camera standards, a bad picture taker too. As the legend goes, somewhere in the 1990s a cult following developed and hasnt stop since. Low and behold I went out and bought 2 of these babies. I love them, but I also had a digital SLR a Canon 20D. After shooting with the Lomo, I wanted to take photos from my 20D and give them the Lomo look and feel. I searched and searched and after trying several different Photoshop methods, I finally came up with my own using a mix of different techniques. By all means, there are probably other ways to do this, but this method has served me well. Get Free Weekly Digital Camera Tips via Email Here is my step by step on how I take a digital photo and make it Lomoified. I do have one suggestion though, create an action script once get this down, it will save you a ton of time.

Getting Started Creating a Vignette

The first thing you want to do is create the classic vignette that the Lomos are well known for and I achieve this by doing a freehand lasso of a circle around the photo. It doesnt need to be perfect and to prevent hard edges, I set the feather to 80-90px before creating the circle.

Once you have set the feather (shown above) and have drawn the circle, you must invert the selection. You can do this one of two ways. #1 Shift-Ctrl-I (Shift-cmd-I on the mac) or #2 Go to the menu Select>Inverse.

Now to achieve the vignette, I add a Levels layer. Note: I still have the invert selected.

This will add a masked out layer on top of your original layer. I then adjust the levels by moving the center arrow to the right. This will darken the edges, giving me a vignette. The amount is up to you and in this case I went from 1.00 to 0.50 on the center number highlighted in the image below.

Now you have a vignette.

On to making the photo look Lomo

Another key to a Lomo picture is the color contrast and saturation. This occurs because people with real Lomos use color slide film and cross-process the film in C41 chemicals. For those that dont know what cross-processing is, its when you develop film in a chemical other then what it was made for. Standard 35mm film is usually processed in C41 chemicals and Color Slide film is usually processed in E6 chemicals. Interesting results happen when you mix and match. Typically, Lomo owners will take color slide film (E6) and have it processed as standard 35mm film (C41). This results in over saturation of colors and at times some freaky results. All of which make Lomo as special as they are. To get a digital photo to look Lomo, we need to fake the cross-processing effect (E6 film in C41 chemicals). At this point I usually flatten the image using shift-ctrl-e (shift-cmd-e on the mac) or go to the menu and Layer>Merge Layers. First, I add a curves layer and create a slanted S.

Then I create a new layer on top of the other two layers. I select the paint bucket and pick the color black and fill the new layer with solid black.

Then I change the blending mode and set it to Hue and reduce the opacity to 40%.

Sharpening and Saving

This has gotten us very close to be finished. Again, I flatten the photo by using shift-ctrl-e (shift-cmd-e on the mac) or go to the menu and Layer>Merge Layers. Before saving the photo as a JPG, you need to sharpen the photo. I use the unsharp mask and Lab mode/lightness technique. The purpose of this step is that it adds more contrast and darkens some of the areas as well. Now you can use whatever sharpening technique you want, but the following method prevents the color halos that come with certain sharpening techniques. Go to Image>Mode>Lab Color. If you hadnt flattened the image yet, it will ask you if want to flatten, please do so. Then select your channel window and click on the lightness channel. The 3 other channels should deselect.

Then go to the menu, select Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask.

I like sharpness, so I set the Amount to 50%, Radius to 50% and the Threshold to 0. Click Ok. This is completely up to you on the settings. Plus it will depend on the photo as well and use your best judgment/preference. Go to Image>Mode> RGB Color. You do not have to reselect the unchecked channels, when converting back to RGB, the channels will automatically turn back on and the photo will go back to be in color. Now you are done, save the file and share. Final step, save as a Jpeg.

Before the Lomo Photography Look

After the Lomo Photography Look

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