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The Photoshop 'Secret' of Photoshop Pros!

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Best Photoshop Technique ~ The 'Secret' of Photo Pros for Years!

Give your photos eye-catching, moody shadows, darkened backgrounds. Wanna go lighter, not darker? This also works for white-hot highlights, disappearing backgrounds. No selection tools required. Totally easy, totally fast. Good looking results. The image to the left was nothing special until I added the dramatic dark shadows on the bottom half and in the clouds.

A more obvious example using a sunflower photo follows below.

The applications of this technique are very wide. Animal and people portraits macro work and product photography all benefit.
See other examples throoughout this tutorial.

Basic knowledge of the Layers Palette, Adjustment Layers & Masks is helpful, but a novice could play with this and learn it as well as more advanced users.

Contents at a Glance

Before & After
Use Shadows or Light for Better Looking...
INTRO
BEFORE ~ Let's take a closer look
AFTER ~ 1 minute in Photoshop delivers a...
Let's Get Started ~ Things You Should Kn...

Before & After
Use Shadows or Light for Better Looking Images
INTRO
BEFORE ~ Let's take a closer look
AFTER ~ 1 minute in Photoshop delivers a rich professional photograph
Let's Get Started ~ Things You Should Know
Start
Curves Dialog Box
Before you invert the mask...
Mask inverted
Check settings & start!
Grab Your Paintbrush
Masks are Confusing At First...
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Before & After

Use Shadows or Light for Better Looking Images

INTRO

BEFORE & AFTER examples coming up next

I first saw this demonstrated at an all-day CS3 seminar -it is simple, fast, versatile.

BEFORE ~ Let's take a closer look

AFTER ~ 1 minute in Photoshop delivers a rich professional photograph

Let's Get Started ~ Things You Should Know

Step by step lesson to follow

Familiarity with the following list of Photoshop tools is necessary to understand the procedure:

Layer Palette
Curves Dialog Box
Adjustment Layers
Masking
Paintbrush Tool

Start

Have your image open in photoshop and make your Layer Palette visible.

Create a Curves Adjustment Layer in the Layers Palette

Pull the TOP END of the Curves line from the top straight down to the bottom right.

The Curves dialog box now has a horizontal line along the bottom of the grid.

Your image has gone black. This is supposed to happen.

Click OK to accept the Curves adjustment and close the dialog box.

Back in the Layer Palette, with the Curves layer active, choose Multiply from the Blending Modes drop-down menu in the upper left corner.

Click on the mask thumbnail and Invert it, (command + I), making it a solid black mask.

Curves Dialog Box

REMEMBER:

Your image should NOT be dark anymore. This is good.

Your layer palette should have 2 layers: Background and Layer 1.

Layer 1 must be above the Background layer.

It should have a curves thumbnail with a black mask linked to it.

Both layers should be visible (eye icon to the left of each layer)

Before you invert the mask...

Mask inverted

Check settings & start!

Grab Your Paintbrush

Screenshot of Settings Explained Here

Grab the paintbrush tool

Make the brush large soft & round (-50% opacity -0% Hardness -Really Big)

Click on the MASK thumbnail in the Layer Palette

Make the foreground and background colors the default Black & White

Start brushing using white to paint the shadows in, adjusting the brush size as needed.

Switch to black to reduce the effect of the shadows.

Change the opacity of the brush as needed for the desired effect.

Masks are Confusing At First...

Just a Note from Me...

This is my first Tutorial made on Squidoo-So I apologise for any incoherent sentences, spelling mistakes. or other issues. Check back in a week and I will have a more finished lens.

Enjoy this tip.

Sara
8-07-2008

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The Photoshop 'Secret' of Photoshop Pros!

Best Photoshop Technique ~ The 'Secret' of Photo Pros for Years!

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

Table of Contents

INTRO

BEFORE & AFTER examples coming up next

Let's Get Started ~ Things You Should Know

Step by step lesson to follow

Start

REMEMBER:

Grab Your Paintbrush

Screenshot of Settings Explained Here

Just a Note from Me...

Add A Link

Add Your Link / Rate Two Others

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