Welcome to Tutorial Tuesday! In case you missed last week’s introduction…Branson of My Reflection of Something and I will be bringing you a new challenge every week, to stretch your shooting and editing skills. This week, I thought we’d tap into our creative editing tool box. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy this one…I know I did!
For those of you who regularly participate in the Edit Me Challenge, you may have already seen this tutorial original shared by k*handtke clicks and keys on creating a watercolor painting. I encourage you to click HERE – this link will take you to the original Photoshop (and Photoshop Elements) tutorial. While I will recap most of the same steps, you may want to see the original.
Speaking of original – this is my original image, taken during my honeymoon with my point and shoot camera. While I could have used a fresh image, I wanted to prove that regardless of the camera you’re using…creative editing is always fun! This might also inspire you to take a trip down memory lane and play with a few of your older shots this week.
- Open your original image in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. What you see above is my image after some basic/clean processing. I think I may still have the RAW image, but it wasn’t important so I didn’t bother sharing it.
- Now duplicate your background layer three times (Ctrl+J). Turn off the top two layers.
- Click on Layer 1. Go to your Filters Menu (at the top of the screen) and select Artistic and Cut Out. Once the dialog box opens, set the following numbers: Number of Levels to 4, Edge Simplicity to 4, and Edge Fidelity to 2. Click OK.
- Change your blending mode to Luminosity. Do not adjust the opacity. Your image will look something like my photo below.
- Turn on the layer above Layer 1 (it may read Layer 1 Copy).
- Go back to your Filters Menu (at the top of the screen). Select Artistic, then Dry Brush. When the dialog box appears, set the Brush Size to 10, the Brush Detail to 10, and the Texture option to 3.
- Change the blending mode of this layer to Screen. The original tutorial tells you to leave the opacity at 100%. I decided it was too heavy and adjusted mine to 32%. Your image may look something like mine below.
- Now turn on the layer above Layer 1 Copy (this should be the top layer).
- Go to your Filters Menu and Select Noise>Median. When the dialog box comes, adjust the radius to 12 pixels.
- Adjust the blending mode to soft light. You may either choose to leave the opacity at 100% or adjust to something less intense (like me) at 35%.
- If you want to add in a little bit of the detail, you may also choose to go back to your background layer…click CTRL+J to create a new background copy layer and apply a high pass filter and a soft light blending mode. This will add just a little bit of pop.
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| Final Image |
And that’s it! Pretty easy huh? Here’s my before and after for comparison. I don’t know that I would use this effect a ton, but it does mix things up from time to time.
Just for good measure, I tried it on another image. This one was taken by my friend Jenn during her vacation to Italy. I once had all of her Italy photos to play with…and they have since disappeared. I think most of them are still on my other laptop (the one that broke in London). Either way, here’s the before and after.
Ready to join in the fun? Here’s how to do it:
1. Visit THIS TUTORIAL.
2. Choose your favorite shot (or more!) to share with us.
3. Don’t forget to grab the button for your post!
4. Link up between now and next Monday.
