Enhancing Images

So I've noticed that no one really has this in their tutorial because most of the tutorials are really advanced or very beginnerish..what about the basic yet right in the middle tutorial?

This is my first tutorial..so hopefully, I'll make this extremely easy for everyone to follow through.

I'm going to help you turn a picture like this:


into this:


So let's start!

Step 1:
Start with a picture, if this your first time doing this, I suggest you start with the picture I used featuring Rachel Bilson & Adam Brody from the hit T.V. series, The O.C.

So open up your adobe photoshop, blah blah blah, copy the picture & click File>New.
Then press ctrl + v. Super easy. Too basic.

Step 2:
Click Image>Adjustments>Curves or simply press ctrl + m


Step 3:
Now that you have this window open, adjust the curves by dragging anywhere you want. The goal is to make the picture lighter than the original so you would drag upwards instead of downards. If you drag downwards, the picture will become darker.

Press okay. Duplicate your background layer by clicking on your "Layers" box. Right click, Duplicate Layer..., press okay.

Step 4:
Now click on the new layer that you have made by duplicating. Where the setting says "Normal", change it to "Hard Light". It's a drop-down menu. Or you can try Overlay or Soft Light and change the opacity to maybe 60-80%.

Now click back to your original background layer. (The reason why I bolded that sentence is because most people forget to so they always ask me why it turns out wrong.)

Step 5:
Click Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur

You should now get a new box. Adjust it to however your liking. I usually use 1.5, but it depends on the picture. Close ups, I use between 1.5 to 3.0. The max I've ever used was 3.0. Anymore, & the picture will be beyond blurry.


Step 6:
This step is not necessary if you do not want a border. You're already done! But here's an extra step to help you get a border around it.
Click Edit>Stroke..

Then you'll get a box like this. Change it to the following. You can change the color of your border as well. I usually use a 1 pixel border, but if you want another type, please continue to read for more steps!


Press okay & now you're done!

Here's what mine turned out like.


Step 7:
To get that purple/lavendar sort of border, repeat step 6, but instead of just using 1px, use 3 & choose black. Then repeat step 6 again, except this time, use a 2px border & change the color to anything you want. I used lavendar. Then repeat step 6 in full. As in, just leave the setting to a 1px border that's black. You should be finished by now & get that sort of result.

As for the other finishes, all I really used were contrasts & brightness, & a bunch of brushes along with a handmade pattern. Search around the site for the tutorials. I think I learned most of them here anyway. If you need help, just leave a reply!

I hope that was easy enough to follow through, again, here are my end results.

really nice(:

awesome, absolutely love it.

the brushes were on the same layer as my colored layer. the different colors were a separate thing that i did. i have a tutorial for that. & i did not just "dump" a light effect on to make it display different colors.

yes,would you please maybe find those other tutorials and maybe make one for those finishing touchs

good look i like this

^I really think they just dumped a light effect on top and then used the brushes which is the swirls and pattern marks. They really should have clarified that in the tutorial, I guess no one checked for that type of thing.Anyway if you like those brushes

i tried it but i didn't get any of that swirly lookin things (i guess those are brush marks) or patterns you have over the picture. i didn't get the lavender color or any other color at the bottom either. what do i need to do to get that?

hii how do you get the brushes to look like that?

Author	TiffanyFactorial
Submitted on	Feb 11, 2006
Page views	42,500
Favorites	143
Comments	8

enhance, images, photoshop