Souping up a Photo
Sep 20th in Photo Effects by Collis
As with all photo-based techniques, it doesn't really make up for having a crappy photo though, so if you are trying to rescue something ugly don't get your hopes up too high!
Before and After
Before we get started, lets compare the original with the result. As you'll see we're taking a great photo and making it really punchy by getting it really contrasty and changing the color palette.
Step 1:
So here's our photo. It's a great shot from iStockPhoto of someone tearing up a wave. Even without any Photoshopping it's already looking pretty good, but it lacks oomph.
Step 2:
Our first step is to up the contrast, you can do this by going to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. I've upped the contrast by 20 and upped the brightness to stop the photo from getting too dark.
Step 3:
Next we duplicate the layer and press Shift-Ctrl-U to desaturate the copy to Black and White.
Step 4:
Set the Black and White layer to Overlay and 60%. This gives us a nicely adjusted photo.
Step 5:
Now with a large, soft brush, create a new layer and paint some black on the edges as shown. When you're done, set that layer to Overlay and 50% or thereabouts. We do this just to make the center of the image have a slightly higher contrast to the edges, which helps make it pop.
Step 6:
Now with this method, you should be adjusting to compensate for your specific image. In this photo of the surfer, there is some extra noise in the bottom left. I think they are bubbles or wash or something, it's not important, to us they are just unwanted noise. So with a large, fat, black brush gently paint over that area. Having some parts of the photo be quite flat and clear makes the other parts seem more visually interesting, so this again helps give the photo more punch.
Step 7:
Now the coloring of the image is quite bright, so we create a new layer on top, fill it with black, and set the blending mode to Color. Then we change the Opacity to just 30%, this effectively desaturates the image a little, but by adjusting opacity we can control this easily and without doing anything permanent.
Step 8:
Now we could stop here, but I want to get some greenish ocean colors in there too. For this purpose I downloaded an image from Arsenal's Freebie Section under Watercolors. It has a perfect ocean-y color pallet and some texture to boot. So we paste this into a layer above all the others and set it to Color Burn and 20%. I wish I had some good explanation of why I used Color Burn, but the truth is I just played around with all the blending modes until I found one that looked nice!
Step 9:
And here's our finished image!
Now with a technique like this, remember to use judgment as to how far to go with the photo. In this case I've gone pretty far because its a tutorial, but you could always tone this back by copying the original photo on top and setting it to say 30% Opacity so that it mixes in with the Photoshopped version.
Sample PSD
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Xavier September 20th
As always, you got some mad skills and great information here. Thabk you very much.
( )Dino September 20th
That is absolutely helpful! Thanks for the tutorial.
( )dSung September 20th
You know what. I can’t wait for the next one, really.
( )rhodry September 20th
Awesome tutorial, everything here is so clean and great, keep up the good job :]
( )Cara September 21st
I “stumbled” onto your tutorials yesterday and already I can’t get enough of them, this one is equally as wonderful as the others.
Can’t wait to see what else you have up your sleeve!
( )wootman September 21st
Keep up the good work
( )Woody September 21st
Excellent tutorial, and very easy to understand
thanks
( )Steve September 21st
Great tutorial, thanks.
Sorry to go a bit off-topic, but I couldn’t find a contact page. Is there a reason why you have gone from full- to partial-feeds? I really loved getting the whole article in my feed-reader.
Thanks again.
( )Ignacio September 21st
Excelent website! Its really helpful
( )eraj September 21st
using adjustment layer curves works great too. It uses the color information in the photo to create lights and darks and works great for punching in contrast and juicy-ness.
Another great tutorial. Thanks!
( )Alain September 21st
Great tut!
The same techniques could be used for all manner of 2D images. I have used a similar method on photomanipulations with great results.
Keep ‘em coming!
( )Julia September 21st
Spectacular, wonderful Collis…Sigh you are a rock star.
( )drumkeyjw September 21st
Great insight and reasoning. I’ve greatly enjoyed your tutorials. Please keep up the great work!
( )Edma September 21st
really neat … thanks, I hope you get some new stuff, so I can keep learning
( )Geeee September 21st
Yeah I liked it too .. thanks and waiting for the next one
( )Timothy September 21st
I came across your website after reading one of your posts on Freelance Switch. I normally don’t bother with tutorials as they usually don’t give me the results I want – But your tutorials are all excellent!
Looking forward to seeing what more you come up with!
( )Kayzah September 22nd
Absolutely Nice, thanks for the instructions
( )Nancy September 22nd
Your pixs are awesome and so are you. I can’t do diddle with my ‘paint’ shop.
( )Ali September 23rd
Collis, Great stuff! Thanks for sharing.
( )Libya September 26th
Your skills are just amazing.. Great Tutorial-Blog!
( )Keep it up!
Yo Momma October 2nd
TOO MUCH COMPUTER ROTS YOUR BRAIN, SONNY!!!
hehe j/k… great work, man! You just blew my mind with that tutorial! =]
( )Deke October 4th
Seems like lots of bad-practice and severe colour range clipping would occur using those techniques…
( )Harry Roberts October 5th
Love it. Pretty helpful!
( )Maicon October 5th
so useful desaturate + overlay
( )continue please \m/
Scott October 6th
My main problem with a cut and dry method like this is that it doesn’t work on all photos. If you did this with a photo that was shot in a theatre or under dark lighting, you lose lots of detail in a persons face or in the white areas. It makes the photo come out splotchy.
It’s also never a good idea to do a general adjustment in the brightness/contrast. There are more precise tools you can use in PS for that.
( )Rob October 16th
Not bad, I think a few things could have been done in less steps, but very nice entry tutorial to editing a photo. Keep up the good work.
( )Infinity November 10th
I found your tutorials on the google “widgets” page and I have to comment on how wonderful this site is. For a beginner like myself, these are so very easy to understand and follow along with. Your photoshop skills are only matched by your wit. Thanks for doing us all a huge service in doing spectacular tutorials.
( )dylansgnarly November 11th
As always, your tutorials are amazing. I can’t believe these tutorials are given for free and of such quality.
Thanks again!
( )Rope November 18th
Nice, thanks
( )Himanshu Kapoor November 23rd
Thanks a lot. Learning a lot from you.
( )Elliot December 1st
Nice tut. I love your techniques, I use many of the same concepts when working with photos as well. Keep em coming.
( )steel December 22nd
on stage 6 the water obove the surfer looks alot more blue. this looks better than the final thing i think. cool tutorial cheers.
( )SubKutz January 9th
Cheers Collis! I didn’t know you was a Photoshop guru!
( )FullAperture January 12th
Nice finishing touch with the ocean teal. Looks sweet.
( )nelson peru January 27th
SO good you are a TROMENNNNN JAJAJA IN YOUR NATION IS GREAT DESIGNER MAN
SALUDOS LIMA – PERU
2008 PSDTUTS RULES
( )Dan February 7th
cool site, very helpful tutorial!
( )Alexis April 1st
Muy bueno !
( )Danny May 9th
All these seemingly meticulous efforts definitely make for an fantastic result!
( )Josh June 24th
Have to be the odd one out here and say I’m not into it. I like the original better, more detail and the colors already looked great. It was a great natural photo.
Not sure why everyone wants to manipulate every single photo they can get their hands on. Color correction and detail enhancing is one thing but it just seems way out of hand. Are we going to look back in the future at all our manipulated unnatural photography with regret?
( )Sacha July 1st
God…
Mad pimping skills!
( )Photoshop Brushes September 19th
Great effect,you rock Collins
( )Skunkie September 25th
Very nice. Thanks al lot.
Even though in step 1 I would prefer adjusting Levels rather than Brightness and Contrast, because those two are destructive tools – meaning that you lose picture details.
( )Laurent December 23rd
Nice ^^
Thank for your job
( )MikeM January 16th
Adjusting photos like this is definitely necessary for a good quality end product. The chicago website design I work for makes sure we go over every image with a fine tooth comb.
( )macias January 19th
nice & useful one
( )serwis telefonów szczecin February 11th
nice!!
( )Shred Dog April 8th
I color correct surfing (not bodyboarding) photos for a living. If you took a photographers shot and added the burned edges and green color, they would freak out. You can do a much better job in less steps and still keep the original image intact.
If you are adding a little flare for maybe some type layout on the image, this type of technique is excellent.
Just my .02 cents.
( )Chris May 3rd
Cool..thanks
( )miss crazed. :) June 5th
cool!
( )Landscape Photography July 15th
Nice outcome, the green colour layer really adds an extra element of depth.
( )Krzycho_666 August 1st
5 sec via doing it in LAB by curves…. -.-
( )ismail August 25th
thanks !
( )Andy October 8th
Some decent tut stuff on this site, nice one.
( )printedproof October 20th
awesome and so simple!
( )u-gene October 20th
The overlay is becoming a great friend on my mac. Here I see him again making everything much better.
( )Great tut!