In this tutorial you will learn step-by-step how to turn an ordinary picture into the look of a professional photographer. You will learn how to make the picture look like washed-out colors. You will also learn the technique of adding a proffesional soft-effect often used in portraits, wedding pictures etc. Finally, we will frame the picture in a simple and trendy way.

These effects often costs proffesional photographers a lot of money on camera equipment and time spent in the darkroom. Now, you can achieve the same effects with some photoshopping, saving yourself a lot of time and money.

It is required that you know the basics of Photoshop, how to open an image, the basic use of the menu etc. This tutorial is made for Photoshop version 7 or later, but will work with earlier versions too.

     Before lesson, click to enlarge                After Lesson, click to enlarge

            

 

figure 1

Step 1.

First of all you need to get the picture used in this tutorial, download it in .zip file here. Open it in Photoshop after unzipping.

We will start by correcting the levels of the picture making it in balance with itself. From the top menu choose Image -> Adjustments -> Auto Levels. (See figure 1a.)

Notice the difference ?! You can also hover the cursor over figure 1 to see the difference.

Help to the novice:

You can also do the Auto Levels by pressing CTRL+Shift+L.

The Auto Contrast and Auto Color (from the same menu) can also be very useful on certain pictures, correcting contrast and color.

Figure 1a

 

figure 2

Step 2.

Now we will apply the stylish Washed Out Colored effect to the picture.

From the menu choose Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation. Move the slider of Saturation down to -80 (see figure 2a) and press OK.

Your picture should now look like figure 2.

Help to the novice:

You can also get the Hue/Saturation by pressing CTRL+U on your keyboard. Hue/Saturation controls the colors of the picture, with Hue as the color "chooser" and Saturation as the "power" of the chosen color.

figure 2a

 

figure 3

Step 3.

Now we will add the cool Soft Effect. Make a copy of the active layer by right-clicking the layer in the layers panel, choosing Duplicate Layer.

In the top menu choose Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur. Pick a radius between 5 and 6 and press OK. Duplicated layer should now be blurred (figure 3).

Change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to soft light, see where the red arrow points on figure 3a. Notice the awesome difference...

Help to the novice:

The different blending methods is used to decide how the layers blend with each other. We want our duplicated layer to be blended with Soft Light to the layer below.

figure 3a

 

figure 4

Step 4.

Now for the trendy frame. Make sure the background color in the tool bar is white, see the red arrow in figure 4a.

In the menu choose Image -> Canvas Size.

Change the value of width to 700 pixels and the height to 900. Now you picture should look like figure 4.

Help to the novice:

If you'd like the frame black instead, then make sure the background color is black before changing the canvas size. White, black and dark-gray are suitable colors for this kind of framing.

figure 4a

 

figure 5

Step 5.

We are almost finish. In the Layers panel right-click the Background copy layer. Choose Blending options and click the checkbox for the Stroke option (see figure 5a). Set the options to black as strokecolor and 1px as width. Press OK. This will add a tiny border around the colored picture. A nifty little detail.

Finally add a title. Click the text symbol in the tool bar, pick a suitable font with a dark-gray color. Rotate it from menu Edit -> Transform -> Rotate.

You've done, congratulations! click the picture to the left for big size.

 Help to the novice:

To make the Stroke options appear you have to click once in the checkbox and then click the Stroke field so it turns gray (see below). The stroke options will then become available to the right side.

figure 5a

 

FINISHED