Tutorial One: Quick & Easy Photo Enhancement
I always prep my images before I do anything with them. Especially when I'm doing icons or montages and blends. Here are some quick ways
to enhance an image.
Do note that these won't work for every image. Do experiment.
Here, I just wanted the image to be a little brighter and more contrasted.
01. I duplicate the image (LAYER >> DUPLICATE LAYER or CTRL +J)
02. On the duplicated layer, I set the blend mode to "Overlay". Keep opacity at 100%.
Here, I wanted to darken the tree and the sky and get the prints on the snow more contrasted.
01. I duplicated the image twice.
02. On the first duplicated layer, I set the layer to Colorburn and set the opacity to 50%. It was a bit dark, so I wanted to brighten it a bit.
03. On the second duplicated layer, I set the layer to Softlight and set the opacity to 60%. Below is the layers pallete.
I wanted to brighten the field without washing out the sky.
01. I open curves (IMAGE >> ADJUSTMENTS >> CURVES or CTRL M)
02. In RGB, click on the graph and apply these settings:
First Point Input: 92 Output: 86
Second Point Input: 149 Output: 178 (below is how its suppose to look like)
The original was already perfect as is, but I wanted the image brighter and make the girl look "dreamy".
01. I duplicated the image.
02. I applied the Gaussian Blur filter (FILTER >> BLUR >> GAUSSIAN BLUR) and where it says "Radius", I put 28.5.
03. On the gaussian blur layer, I set it to Overlay Opacity: 100%. Below is the layers pallete.