Digital Camera World » Photoshop

Photoshop CS7: 11 features we’d like to see

jmeyer — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 11:30:17 +0000

Yes, we know… you only just coughed up for Photoshop CS6, but now that it’s here and we’re using it, there’s no reason we should start writing down what features we’d like to see in Adobe Photoshop CS7, is there? It is, after all, the time of year for making wishlists!

So now that the dust has settled, indulge us for a moment as we reflect on what we’d like to see in Photoshop CS7.

11 features we desperately want in Photoshop CS7

1. De-blur
The leaked video at Photoshop world that showed a filter capable of rescuing a blurred photo caused a sensation (with some denouncing it as a fake), yet there’s been no word of it since.

2. Tool to overlap or tuck layers
A feature previewed a while ago that allowed you to tuck a layer over or under one another, weaving them in and out.

3. The Old Crop tool
We’ve been using Photoshop CS6’s new Crop tool for a while now and keep waiting for it to click with us, but it’s just not happening. Three reasons why: The crop box looks too similar to the Transform bounding box; we miss the Front Image button; and call us old fashioned but we prefer dragging a crop box rather than having it already there.

4 Keyboard shortcut to alter brush angle
How about a keyboard shortcut for Photoshop CS7 that allows you to rotate your brush tip clockwise and anti-clockwise?

5. Clarity slider/brush/Adjustment Layer in CS
The Clarity slider is one of Adobe Camera Raw’s most useful controls, so why not bring the same functionality into Photoshop CS7? It would be great to have a Clarity Adjustment Layer.

6. Print templates
Everyone has a printer that uses standard paper sizes, so why not include a template feature in Photoshop CS7 that can allow you to print templates such as, say, 3 6×4 inch prints on one piece of A4? How about a dedicated Print Template command?

7. Blend Mode brush
We’d love to see a blend mode brush in Photoshop CS7 that allows you to change the blend mode of different parts of a layer simply by painting over it.

8. Command to open a sequence of images one after another
Let’s say you’ve got a bunch of wedding photos. You don’t want to open them all in one go, so you work on them in batches of ten or so instead. It would be great if Photoshop CS7 had a feature like the Autoloader plugin, which allows you to target a folder then open the files inside one at a time, with the next in the sequence opening automatically each time you close an image.

9. Price drop!
Come on Adobe, we know you produce amazing software, but does it really have to be so expensive? We’ve asked our readers several times what they’d like to see in Photoshop CS7, and this tops every list!

10. HUD for other filters like the Blur Gallery
The intuitive’ Heads Up Display’ in the new Blur and Lighting Effects gallery works like a dream. How about the same display for other filters in Photoshop CS7? Some, like Zoom Blur and Lens Flare (with their tiny square preview box that’s impossible to judge) could really benefit from an update.

11. Reset All sliders button for Adjustment Brush/Graduated Filter tool in ACR
Adobe Camera Raw’s Adjustment Brush and Graduated Filter tools always remember the last used settings, which can be annoying if you want to make lots of different adjustments, as you end up hhaving to reset each slider every time. We’ve lost count the number of times we’ve forgotten to reset a slider (the temperature and Color box are regular culprits). Surely a Reset All control isn’t too much to ask for?

Big changes from Practical Photoshop magazine

samanthacliffe — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:28:45 +0000

Practical Photoshop, the world’s biggest and best Photoshop magazine has changed! From Issue 19 onwards, you’ll now find us in the Photography section of your local newsagents and stores. And to mark our big move, we’ve taken £1 off our cover price so you can snap up a copy for just £4.99 each month.

As usual, the magazine will be jam-packed with creative Photoshop tips, tricks and advice to help you get the very best out of your images. But we’ll also be expanding the photographic aspects our magazine, too, including some great shooting techniques that will be of vital benefit to any photographer out there. In this latest issue, we’ll show you how to shoot and stitch your own panorama.

Whether you want to learn how to process your Raw files to perfection, get to grips with Lightroom, master the art of Layer Masks, add artistic effects or simply make your great pictures shine, we’re on hand to show you how with our team of experts in our new and improved magazine. Each issue also comes with its own superb video disc of tutorials.

And don’t forget, we’ve also got a great subscription offer for you, wherever you are in the world. Click here for full details of subscription offers for both the print and digital versions of our magazine.

Find out more about some of our other sister photography magazines

How to cross process photos in Photoshop

jmeyer — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 09:00:52 +0000

Despite its origins in traditional film photography, the cross-processed look is still hugely popular with photographers who want to give their images a creative edge. Typically, the characteristics include skewed colours, increased saturation, and enhanced contrast. In this Photoshop tutorial we’re going to show you how to cross process photos digitally and add a black-edged border to a raw image.

We’ll start by tweaking the colours, tones and saturation in the Basic tab, and then we’ll move to the Split Toning tab to add one hue to the shadows and another to the highlights. To add a black border we’ll use the Graduated Filter tool from the main menu bar.

We’ll also show you how to save your setting as a preset, so if you want to apply the style to future images, you’ll be able to do so with a single click.

01 Crop the image
To make the image slightly squarer choose the Crop tool on the top menu bar, select a 4 to 5 aspect ratio from the drop-down menu, and mark out a new frame. This is editable, so you can go back and alter your crop should you change your mind.

02 Tweak the colour
For initial colour tweaks in the Basic section, move the Temperature slider to 6000 and Tint to -50. To boost the intensity of the colours set Vibrance to +70 (which only affects the less-saturated colours) and Saturation to about +30.

03 Boost the contrast
Set the Blacks slider to about +40, Brightness to +50, Contrast to 95, Clarity to +30 and Exposure to +0.75. Remember that these tweaks will vary from image to image, so if you’re using your own, you’ll need to experiment with the figures.

04 Apply split-toning
In the Split Toning panel set the Highlight Hue to about 220, Highlight Saturation to 95%, Shadows Hue to 15, and Shadows Saturation to 50%. Move the Balance slider to about –30. These settings are subjective, so experiment with the sliders.

05 Make a border
To make a black border around the image, select the Graduated Filter tool from the menu bar, then enter an exposure of –3.0 and a Saturation of –100. Click just outside the frame and draw a line inwards a few millimetres into the image, then repeat for the other three sides.

06 Save your settings
Once you’ve finished, go to the drop-down menu at the top right of the ACR window and select Save Settings. You’ll then be able to access the same settings using the Apply Presets. This will make repeating the process much easier, and it can be really useful for batch processing, too.

7 editing secrets of retro photography

jmeyer — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:33:55 +0000

In this age of flawless digital photography, there’s something irresistible about the retro photography and analogue Photoshop effects that hark back to the days when imperfection was all part of the charm.

This idea has caught on. The recent $1billion acquisition of Instagram by Facebook being just one indication of the popularity of the old-school look. It seems that everybody wants their images to look like they were taken with an old Polaroid then left in a shoebox for 30 years!

These Photoshop effects can be created quite easily, but, of course, this begs the question: why bother when you can get a free app that does all the work for you? Well, besides the fact that Photoshop is far more powerful, it also offers almost limitless variety and control over the end product that can’t be matched by a  simple smartphone app.

In this Photoshop tutorial we’ll dissect and analyse the different effects that make up this popular retro photography look. We’ve divided these into seven categories. For each, you’ll find advice on how to apply various settings and filters to create a stylish array of retro effects.

1. Creative colour
The chemicals used to create colour prints are sensitive to light, moisture and temperature changes. After time, this inevitably leads to colour shifts and fading. We can recreate these colour shifts by using Curves Adjustment Layers. A drag up on the curve line will lighten the image or chosen channel at a specific point in the tonal range (represented by the X axis). Add more points along the line to tweak individual tonal ranges such as the shadows (to the left of the line) or the highlights (to the right). Target different colour channels by choosing them from the RGB drop-down menu.

Red Channel: Drag curve line up to add red, down to add cyan.
Green Channel: Drag curve line up to add green, down to add magenta.
Blue Channel: Drag curve line up to add blue, down to add yellow

Here, we’ve dragged down on the red and blue channels to introduce cyan and yellow into our image. You can experiment with all manner of different combinations to get a huge variety of results.

2. Light leaks
Light leaks occurred in traditional film photography when a gap in the body of a camera unintentionally let light reach the film. As the film was rolled up, leaks typically affected the edges of the frame at the top and bottom.

We can replicate the light leak look with a Curves Adjustment Layer. Click the Create Adjustment Layer icon and choose Curves, then select the Red channel and drag a point on the curve right up.

Next, go to the Blue channel and drag a point right down. Hit Cmd/Ctrl+I to invert the mask on the Curves layer and hide the effect, then grab the Brush tool and paint with white to reveal the orange light leak effect around the edges.

Experiment with different rough-looking brushes and lower the tool’s Opacity to make your brush strokes less uniform.

8 ‘alternative’ ways to convert to black and white in Photoshop

jmeyer — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:30:43 +0000

There are many ways to skin a cat in Photoshop and converting to mono is no exception. Here are some other popular ways to convert to black and white
Photoshop’s ultimate mono conversion tool is the Black & White tool, which offers an intuitive, flexible way to convert to black and white.

However, messing about with the Black & White tool’s color channels without restraint can lead to serious image quality issues such as haloes, blocking and noise.

There are many ways to skin a cat in Photoshop and converting to mono is no exception. Here we’ve compile 8 of the most popular alternative ways to convert to black and white.

For more on black and white photography, check out our in-depth guide Black and White Photography: what you need to know for perfect mono pictures.

1. Greyscale
Simply changing the Mode of your image from Colour to Greyscale actually offers a pretty reasonable mono conversion. Click Image> Mode>Greyscale, then click OK when asked if you want to ‘Discard colour information’. The problem is that you have zero control over the result. Switching to Greyscale also blocks many Adjustments and Filters, and you need to choose Image>Mode>RGB Colour to free them up again. If you’re really pressed for time this might be just the job, though.

+ Reasonable results almost instantly
- No control over result

2. Lab Color
Another quick and easy conversion technique. Again there’s no control, but it does generate a particularly light, airy and smooth looking result that’s well suited to delicate subjects and/or high-key or low-contrast treatments. Click Image>Mode>Lab Colour. Now click Window>Channels and click on the Lightness channel. To finish, choose Image>Mode>Greyscale and click OK.

+ Creates smooth, airy results quickly
- No control over result

3. Desaturation
Clicking Image>Adjustments>Desaturate is even quicker than converting to Greyscale, but the result is just slightly rougher and again you have zero control. Desaturation via Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation, however, provides much more control and more pleasing results. First drag the Saturation slider to -100, then use the drop-down Edit menu to selectively vary the Lightness of the Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyans, Blues and Magentas to taste.

+ Lightness control over individual channels
- Limited control compared with RAW

4. Calculations
Calculations (Image>Calculations) enables you blend two source channels to create a mono conversion. By default, the channels are set to Red and the Blending Mode to Multiply. It’s worth experimenting with different combinations, but for non-portrait shots, this set-up plus a reduction in Blending Mode Opacity will usually produce the best results.

+ A quick way to create dramatic results
- Limited number of conversion settings

5. Channel Mixer
The Channel Mixer is a formidable device, allowing precise blending of the Red, Green and Blue channels to create a wide variety of mono effects. Choose Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Channel Mixer. Check the Monochrome box and vary the Source channels, ideally keeping the overall percentage total to around 100.

+ Great control and good results
- Requires time and experimentation

6. Gradient Map
For harder, high-contrast results, try the Gradient Map. Click Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient Map and click OK. Set your Foreground Colour in the Tools Palette to Black, choose the Foreground to Background gradient and click OK. Refine the contrast by dragging the Colour Stop and Smoothness sliders.

+ Punchy results and fine-tuning available
- Best for mid to high contrast subjects only

7. Adobe Camera Raw: HSL/Greyscale
The Camera Raw HSL/Greyscale tab offers an effective method for converting RAW image to mono. Once you’ve primed your shot using the standard Camera Raw controls, click the HSL/Greyscale tab and choose Convert to Greyscale. You can then separate and enhance the individual tones using the eight Greyscale Mix colour controls. Further refinements are then possible within Photoshop.

+ Offers vast array of controls and effects
- Changes must be applied to entire image

8. Plug-ins
You can re-create in Photoshop virtually all of the effects offered by third-party plug-ins such as ‘Black & White Studio’ and ‘Film Grain’ by Power Retouche. For example, you could track down grainy traditional 35mm films, scan them in and turn them into mono grain filters. For those without the time or inclination to do this, dedicated plug-ins can be used.

+ Extensive new controls and effects
- Quality plug-ins don’t come cheap

Making sense of RGB and greyscale
The colour in digital images is created by combining three different colour channels: red, green and blue (RGB).

Each of these channels can record just 256 shades of that colour, but when these channels are combined they can record more than 16 million possible colour combinations (256x256x256).

A greyscale image, meanwhile, is a black-and-white conversion made up of just 256 shades of grey, ranging from pure black to pure white.

Ensure print-friendly colors with the Photoshop Gamut Warning

jmeyer — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:09:00 +0000

Before

After

Your computer mixes Red, Green and Blue (RGB) channels together to produce millions of different colours. Printers combine Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK) inks to create a more limited colour palette. On-screen colours that can’t be reproduced in print are called ‘out of gamut’ (or out of range) colours.

Although Elements users can produce more print-friendly colours using the Adobe RGB colour space, you can still boost colour saturation to accurately reproduce them.

Photoshop CS users have tools to help them keep edited colours within a printable range, like the CMYK mode and an out-of-gamut warning. Here, we’ll show you how to use these more advanced CS tools.

Step 1: Choose a colour space
Photoshop CS users can follow steps 1 to 4 in the main walkthrough to tweak the start image in CS’s Camera Raw editor. Once you’ve clicked Open Image, go to Edit>Colour Settings. In Working Spaces, set the RGB menu to Adobe RGB (1998) to work in a printer-friendly colour space. Click OK.

Step 2: Gamut Warning
Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer, boost the Blues Saturation to +57 and set Hue to +20. Go to Window and tick Gamut Warning. Most of the sky will turn a patchy grey, indicating these colours are out of a printer’s range. Drop the Blues Saturation down to +35 to reduce the gamut warning patches.

Step 3: Edit the mask
Follow steps 7 to 9 to boost the colour saturation of the Cyans, Reds and Yellows. This will add more gamut warning patches to parts of the scene. You can reduce the intensity of the colour saturation by dropping the Adjustment Layer’s Opacity to 80%.

Step 4: Change mode
To force Photoshop CS to use printer-friendly colours go to Image>Mode>CMYK Colour. Click Flatten, then OK to choose a CMYK profile. The gamut warning patches will vanish, and the colours  on screen will be more similar to those in print.

Photoshop Effects: recreate the look of a medium format portrait

jmeyer — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 11:29:51 +0000

Colour, or the absence of it, plays a crucial role in portraiture. By manipulating colour and tone to create diferent Photoshop effects you can create striking portraits that really stand out from the crowd. Here, we’ll show you how to give your portraits an edgy, stylish, ultra-detailed finish often seen in modern portrait photography. We’ll use subtle variations in saturation, brightness and contrast to achieve similar results. What you’ll need is Photoshop CS4 or higher.

While some tonal tweaks will be applied universally, the emphasis here is on selective adjustments. We’ll start by working on our raw image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) with the Adjustment Brush. This is one of the most powerful tools that ACR, or indeed Photoshop, has to offer, allowing you to paint an area that can be edited with various sliders. It’s quick and easy to boost contrast, lower colour saturation, add a touch  of clarity or darken highlights.

Once we’re in the main Photoshop interface, we’ll mimic the effects of a shallow depth of field by adding blur to parts of the image that are behind the point of focus. This helps to give the portrait a softer feel and draws attention to the eyes – we’ll give them special attention with the Dodge and Burn  tools to make them really pop.

We’ll also make use of Photoshop’s HDR toning command and shift the colours in Curves to give the image a final polish. Here’s how it’s done…

How to recreate the look of a medium format portrait

01 Open and crop
Open your original file in Adobe Bridge. Right-click on it and choose Open in Camera Raw.

Grab the Crop tool from the top toolbar, then right-click and choose a ‘2 to 3’ ratio. Crop in tighter on the subject’s face, then click on the Zoom tool to see the results of the new crop.

02 Boost the tones
Next, click on the Basic tab, then use the sliders in this panel to adjust the tones. Set Exposure to +0.55, Fill Light to 45, Blacks to 11, Contrast to +30 and Clarity to +20. You can now bleach out some of the colour by knocking the Vibrance slider back to -37 and reducing Saturation to -15.

03 Prepare a mask
Click on the Adjustment Brush. Ensure the Show Mask box is checked, then click the colour box next to it and choose a bright colour to represent the mask so you can easily see where you’ve painted. Use Cmd/Ctrl and the + key to zoom in closer on the face.

04 Set a pin
Resize your brush so it’s smaller than the eye, then click over the iris to add your first pin. Paint over both irises to complete the mask. Uncheck Show Mask, set Exposure to +0.45, Brightness to +30, Contrast to +30, Saturation to +37, Clarity to +70 and Sharpness to +10.

05 Mask the hair
Click on New (top right), then check Show Mask. Add a second pin over the hair, then completely paint over the hair. Make sure you don’t include any of the background. If you go wrong, hold Alt and paint to erase. When you’re happy, uncheck Show Mask.

06 Enhance the hair and lips
Double-click each slider to reset them. Next, set Brightness to +20, Contrast to +15, Saturation to -15 and Clarity to +21. Click New, then set another pin and paint a mask over the lips. For the lips, reset the sliders, then set Saturation to +20 and Clarity to +40.

07 Desaturate the skin
Add a new pin and paint over the skin to make another mask. Reset the sliders again and set Saturation to -15 and Clarity to +15. Make another pin for the brightest skin on the forehead, and this time bring Clarity back to -70 to tone it down.

08 Open and duplicate
Add more pins if you want to tweak other areas, then hit Open Image to open in Photoshop. Right-click the Background layer in the Layers palette, then choose Duplicate Layer. In the Destination settings, choose Document: New, then name it HDR and hit OK.

09 Apply HDR toning
Click on the new HDR image, then go to Image> Adjustments>HDR Toning. In Preset, choose Photorealistic High Contrast, then OK. Right-click the layer and choose Duplicate Layer. Set Destination Document as the portrait_before image and hit OK.

10 Change the Blending Mode
Go back to the portrait_before image and change the Blending Mode of the new layer to Luminosity. Alt-click the Add Layer Mask icon. This adds a full mask that hides the layer. Grab the Brush tool and hit D to reset the foreground colour to white.

11 Reveal the effect
Hit 2 to set the brush opacity to 20%, then paint the face to selectively reveal the HDR effect over the skin and eyes. If you go too far, hit X to flip your colour to black and paint to hide the effect. Overall strength can be controlled by lowering the layer opacity.

12 Add blur
Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E to merge the layers into a new layer at the top of the layer stack. Right-click this new layer and select Convert to Smart Object. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, set Radius to about 4px and hit OK. Double-click the layer name and call it Blur.

13 Mask the blur
Alt-click the Add Layer Mask icon to hide the blur. Grab the Brush tool, choose a soft-edged brush and set foreground colour to white (D). Paint the edges of the head and body to reveal the blur in areas that would be naturally be further from the camera.

14 New layer settings
Hold Alt and click the New Layer icon to access the New Layer box. Name it Dodge and Burn, then click on the Mode drop-down menu and choose Overlay. This should give you an option below to Fill with Overlay-Neutral Colour. Check this and hit OK.

15 Dodge and burn
Grab the Dodge tool and set Range to Midtones and Exposure to 10%. Paint over the whites of the eyes to lighten. Switch to the Burn tool, set Range to Midtones and Exposure to 10%, then paint around the lashes and the edges of the iris to darken them.

16 A quick retouch
Continue using the Dodge and Burn tools to lighten or darken areas of the face. Click on the Create New Layer icon and call it Healing. Grab the Spot Healing tool and ensure Sample All Layers is checked at the top. Use the tool to get rid of blemishes.

17 Add a colour cast
Click the Create Adjustment Layer icon and choose Curves from the list. Go to the RGB drop-down and choose Red, then click one point on the top quarter of the line to pin it in place. Make a second point halfway along and drag it down slightly.

18 Fine-tune colour
In the Blue channel make two points in the middle and top third of the curve. Make a point in the lower quarter and drag up slightly. In the Green channel, make one point and drag up. Go to RGB and boost contrast with a shallow s-shaped curve.

Recreate the super-saturated look of Fuji Velvia in Photoshop

jmeyer — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:00:43 +0000

F uji Velvia film was only introduced in 1990, but with its super-saturated colours, fine-grain and sharpness it quickly changed the look of landscape and nature photography.

There were several films that could match some of these characteristics, but it soon became the film of choice for many landscape and nature photographers who wanted to give their shots maximum impact.

Here, we’ll show you how to recreate the look of this iconic film to improve a digital landscape shot.

Step 1: Raw settings
Find your original image and open it in Adobe Camera Raw.

Set White Balance to Daylight. To mimic the basic look of Velvia, set Clarity to +25 and Saturation to +20. Next, click on the Camera Calibration tab and select Camera Landscape from the drop-down menu before hitting Open Image.

Step 2: Adjust hue and saturation
In the main Photoshop Elements window, open a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and in the Master channel set the Saturation to +15 and the Hue to +2. Next, choose Yellows and set Hue to +3, Saturation to +4 and Lightness to -8. Choose Blues and set Hue to +12 and Saturation to -4.

Step 3: Reduce noise
To smooth out any noise in the image you now need to duplicate the Background layer by pressing Ctrl+J, and then go to Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise. In this window, set Strength to 4 to smooth out the tones, Preserve Details to 60% and Reduce Colour Noise to 35%.

Step 4: Sharpen up
To mimic the fine detail and clarity of Velvia, duplicate the layer you’ve just created (Ctrl+J)and then change Blending Mode to Overlay by clicking on the word Normal at the top of the Layers palette. Go to Filter>Other>High Pass and change Radius to 1.5 to boost the sharpness of the image. Click OK.

In camera
The Landscape Picture Control or Style presets available on many DSLRs will also create a similar look to Fuji Velvia, so check your manual. Or, simply boost the saturation and sharpening settings on your camera.

Create a 1970s-style retro photo print

jmeyer — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 03:00:21 +0000

The Osmonds, woodchip wallpaper… plenty of things from the 70s are best forgotten, but the faded look of round-cornered prints have lasting retro charm. You’ll find plenty of inspiration for this type of print if you’ve got an old photo album lying around.

The 70s retro look can put the finishing touch to any shot, but combine it with a source image taken using one of the techniques in the first part of this feature, and you will end up with  a really eye-catching result (you might also want to check out this other simple, cool way of getting a retro photo effect in Photoshop).

We’ve limited our adjustments to some fading and rounding the corners for our image, but you could go to town and add some texture to give the appearance of tears and folds, or distress the edges for a more weathered effect.

Step 1: Increase the canvas size
Open your original image – in our case, this photo of an old church.

To create a border around the image, go to Image>Resize>Canvas Size (or have a browse through our 50 free photo frames and borders for Photoshop). In the window that appears, change the value boxes to percent, then set Width to 110% and Height to 120%. Click the small box next to the Canvas Extension Colour menu and select a light creamy yellow from the colour picker.

For more on this part of the process, check out our in-depth guide to using photo frames in Photoshop.

Step 2: Create a border
Next, create a new layer by clicking on the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Choose the Rounded Rectangle tool from the Tools palette and set the Radius in the top menu bar to 50 pixels. Then click and drag the rectangle so that it just covers the main image in the middle of the canvas.

Step 3: Fill the corners
With the top layer selected, choose the Magic Wand tool and set Tolerance to 0. Click on the border outside of the rectangle you’ve just added, then click on the Background layer in the Layers palette. Go to Edit>Fill Layer and choose Colour from the drop-down menu. Use the Colour Picker to sample the colour from the border and click OK.

Step 4: Adjust the Levels
Before you continue, click on the eye icon next to the top layer to hide it, then press Ctrl+D to remove the selection. Create a new Levels Adjustment Layer, then choose Blue from the drop-down menu and drag the middle slider to the right to add a warmer look to the midtones. For our image, we set a value of 0.59.

Step 5: Tweak hue/saturation
Finally, create a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. To desaturate the whole image leave the Channel menu set to Master and drag the Saturation slider to the left. For our image, we set this to -21, although you can adjust this once you have changed the individual colour settings.

Step 6: Drain the colour
To achieve the faded colours that give an old print its distinctive look, enter the following values in the drop-down menu at the top of the Hue/Saturation box. In Yellows, set Saturation to  -12, in Blues, set Saturation to -38, and in Cyans  set Saturation to -70 and Hue to -30.

Orton Effect: try this quick, soft-focus Photoshop trick

jmeyer — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 01:00:33 +0000

There are many ways to create soft focus Photoshop effect, but one of our favourite techniques is the Orton Effect.

It has a distinctive look and can really add character to your images. Plus, not many people seem to use it so it’s an opportunity to make your photos look a little different.

The basic concept has been around for years. The effect is named after photographer Michael Orton, who came up with a technique of sandwiching two over-exposed slides of the same subject in the same mount.

One slide was taken in sharp focus, and the other was taken with the subject out of focus. The resulting combination was a correctly exposed image with a unique soft-focus look created by the combination of sharp and out-of-focus exposures.

Like many other film techniques and processes, you can replicate the soft focus Orton effect in Photoshop.

One of the advantages of using Photoshop is that you can control the strength of the effect. It can be subtle, strong or anywhere in between. It’s up to you.

Another benefit is that there’s no need to take two photos of the same image and combine them. So you can go back over old photos and apply the technique to see if it improves the image – a fun rainy day exercise.

The key to using the Orton effect most productively is to use it with suitable images. Choose a strong photo to start with – one that will benefit from a dreamy post-processing treatment. Good potential subjects are softly-lit portraits, autumnal scenes and landscapes. It works well with black-and-white images, too.

The digital equivalent of the Orton effect works by splitting the image into two lightened layers. You then use the Gaussian Blur filter to apply a strong soft-focus effect to the top layer and finish by changing the layer Blend Mode to Multiply. This gives a strong soft-focus effect that’s probably a bit overpowering for most photos.

You can remedy this by duplicating the Background Layer before you start and working on the duplicate layer. You end up with three layers.

You then merge the top two and use the Opacity slider to reduce the strength of the soft-focus effect to taste. Alternatively, simply reduce the strength of the Gaussian blur. Below we’ll show you how to do it step-by-step.

How to create the soft-focus Orton Effect in Photoshop

01 Make a duplicate
Go to Layer>Duplicate Layer to copy the Background Layer. Then go to Image>Apply Image. Set Layer to Background Copy, Channel to RGB and Blend Mode to Screen. Hit OK.

02 Add Gaussian Blur
Go to Layer>Duplicate Layer again. This creates a third layer. Then go to Filter>Blur> Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to around 25 pixels and hit OK.

03 Apply the Multiply Blend Mode
Set the Blend Mode of the top layer to Multiply. Select the top two layers and go to Layer>Merge Layers. Reduce the Opacity to suit your taste.

Top Photoshop Tip
Go one step further and use a mask to apply the Orton effect to the background only. This subtle technique works well with portraits by leaving your sitter sharp. After the last step, create a feathered selection around your subject, go to Select>Inverse and click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel.