Tantalizing Tips... Center light & Crisp~a~licious...
I have several tip posts ready! So I thought I'd post two today! These will just be quick small tips that will hopefully help you!
First one today is center light! I learned this from Florabella. I also included this in my Ziggy Licious Action set for Full PS & PSE called "Dollop of Whip Cream"! It's one I use a lot and wanted to share how it's done!
This will give you a strong or subtle light in the center of your image, hence the name! Lol! I used it on a macro shot but it works wonders on people too!
First set your foreground color to white. Then go to the half black/white circle and select "Gradient" not to be confused with gradient map!
When the dialog box comes up change it to radial. If you want to make the top of your image look sunny & hazy you can also choose a yellow ish color and leave it on Linear and select reverse! :) So back to the center light! Then play with the angle and scale! You can hit reverse if you want the light on the edges of your image! Sky is the limit with PS! :) Then hit enter and you'll have your gradient in your layers panel!
Now change the blend mode to Overlay and play with the opacity! You can use a higher opacity for a stronger effect or a low opacity like I usually use for a nice subtle pop in the center of your image. Sometimes if the face is just a tad dark and the subject is in the center of the frame, I'll run this at about 10% and it gives the face just that little bit of lift that it needs to bring it to life!
Here is the before and after. I realize now I probably should've used a person so you can see it more. But give it a try, I think you'll LOVE it!
Another thing I use in my base ingredients actions in the Ziggy Licious set is this great high pass filter option that I call Crisp~a~licious. I probably shouldn't give too many of my secrets away or nobody will buy my actions...ha!
This is great at low opacity and will give your images that little bit of deminsion and depth and will appear to sharpen it, although it doesn't actually! Just be careful not to use too high layer opacity with this or it will add to much contrast and make your subject and their skin look very harsh! Now I use it at about 15-30% and if it's macro, stills, details etc I MAY go up to 50%!
First thing you do is create a new layer and name it if you want...
Then you need to "Stamp Visiable" by hitting ctrl alt shift e.
Now you want to run a high pass filter on the top photo layer. I assigned a short cut key of ctrl shift . but you can find it under Filter>Other>High Pass! I use 10 but play around with larger or smaller numbers. Your image will look really funky but no worries! Well fix that! Now desaturatre the layer by hitting ctrl shift u or going to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate!
Now change the blend mode to Soft Light {you can also try Overlay but I like Soft Light} and lower the opacity to taste! When done with the proper strength, this method can really enhance your images!
And here is the before/after. If you look at the fine details like her eyes, freckles and the tape you can see the nice subtle but effective difference!
And to comment on the picture of Haylee....it was a joke and she was not hurt, injured, treated badly! Too see the post on my Ziggy Blog click HERE!
So that's it for today! I have several other Tantalizing Tips that I'll be posting in the next couple weeks along with a few action reviews. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
First one today is center light! I learned this from Florabella. I also included this in my Ziggy Licious Action set for Full PS & PSE called "Dollop of Whip Cream"! It's one I use a lot and wanted to share how it's done!
This will give you a strong or subtle light in the center of your image, hence the name! Lol! I used it on a macro shot but it works wonders on people too!
First set your foreground color to white. Then go to the half black/white circle and select "Gradient" not to be confused with gradient map!
When the dialog box comes up change it to radial. If you want to make the top of your image look sunny & hazy you can also choose a yellow ish color and leave it on Linear and select reverse! :) So back to the center light! Then play with the angle and scale! You can hit reverse if you want the light on the edges of your image! Sky is the limit with PS! :) Then hit enter and you'll have your gradient in your layers panel!
Now change the blend mode to Overlay and play with the opacity! You can use a higher opacity for a stronger effect or a low opacity like I usually use for a nice subtle pop in the center of your image. Sometimes if the face is just a tad dark and the subject is in the center of the frame, I'll run this at about 10% and it gives the face just that little bit of lift that it needs to bring it to life!
Here is the before and after. I realize now I probably should've used a person so you can see it more. But give it a try, I think you'll LOVE it!
Another thing I use in my base ingredients actions in the Ziggy Licious set is this great high pass filter option that I call Crisp~a~licious. I probably shouldn't give too many of my secrets away or nobody will buy my actions...ha!
This is great at low opacity and will give your images that little bit of deminsion and depth and will appear to sharpen it, although it doesn't actually! Just be careful not to use too high layer opacity with this or it will add to much contrast and make your subject and their skin look very harsh! Now I use it at about 15-30% and if it's macro, stills, details etc I MAY go up to 50%!
First thing you do is create a new layer and name it if you want...
Then you need to "Stamp Visiable" by hitting ctrl alt shift e.
Now you want to run a high pass filter on the top photo layer. I assigned a short cut key of ctrl shift . but you can find it under Filter>Other>High Pass! I use 10 but play around with larger or smaller numbers. Your image will look really funky but no worries! Well fix that! Now desaturatre the layer by hitting ctrl shift u or going to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate!
Now change the blend mode to Soft Light {you can also try Overlay but I like Soft Light} and lower the opacity to taste! When done with the proper strength, this method can really enhance your images!
And here is the before/after. If you look at the fine details like her eyes, freckles and the tape you can see the nice subtle but effective difference!
And to comment on the picture of Haylee....it was a joke and she was not hurt, injured, treated badly! Too see the post on my Ziggy Blog click HERE!
So that's it for today! I have several other Tantalizing Tips that I'll be posting in the next couple weeks along with a few action reviews. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
3 comments:
sweet!! thanks for the tips. I'm excited to try them out :)
I bought your actions long ago and am a faithful user! I was wondering if the crispalicious is like a defog? Do you do additional sharpening or do you think crispalicious is enough most of the time?
Hi Tiff! Thank you so much. I'm so glad you like the actions! :) The crispalicious is like a defog/sharpening! I usually lower the opacity of that layer {I use 1/2 & 1/2} more on people shots. I still sharpen again as my final step before converting to 8bit and saving as a jpeg. I use Luminosity USM. There is a section of this tut http://momaziggypsfun.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-basic-workflow.html where I go over how I sharpen! HTH & let me know if you have any other questions! :)
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