5 Useful Photoshop Effects

by Staff

Special thanks to Andrea Austoni for posting this tutorial to the Photoshop 911 Tutorials page! Andrea, from Milano, Italy, now Krakow, Poland graduated from Politecnico di Milano university with a degree in Architecture. Starting in 3D art Andrea then branched out into identity, advertising and packaging -- now specializing in icon design and illustration, with a strong focus on realism, three-dimensionality and fun. See lots of bright, sincere design and visuals at the www.cutelittlefactory.com

5 Useful Photoshop Effects in 3 Easy Steps

In this fun tutorial Andrea will explain how to create 5 essential effects in 3 easy steps, using basic Photoshop tools. Useful for a range of situations, these effects work best when you don't have time to reach high quality standards. If you work in an agency you know how it goes -- these techniques are lifesavers! Andrea submits the following ...

1. The Bold And The Beautiful Effect

Let's try to replicate the soft and blurry image effect used (and abused) in soap operas, daytime dramas and erotic magazines. I'll call it The Bold And The Beautiful Effect.

Step 1 : Duplicate the picture's layer.
Step 2 : Apply Gaussian Blur.

Duplicate the picture’s layer. and Apply Gaussian Blur.

Step 3 : Set Screen blending mode, possibly reducing Opacity to your liking.

Done! You can puke now. It's a release.

2. Fake Miniature Photography

This pops up here and there. You take a picture of a landscape or a nice city shot. miniature-start

Step 1 : Enter Quick Mask and make a gradient selection. (detail)
Step 2 : Invert the selection and apply Lens Blur. (detail)

a picture of a landscape or a nice city shot make a gradient selection

Step 3 : Adjust colors and sharpen the image.
Now it looks like it's a model. Cute!

Use blur and photo mask to simulate short depth of field model photography

... continues on the next page!

Posted November 18, 2009. Tags: free tutorial, image editing, photographs, textures

Unless noted otherwise, this page and content was authored by Fred Showker, Editor and Publisher of DTG Magazine and 60-Seconds.com. You can hook up with Fred at +FredShowker, on Google+ or most social medias @Showker

Comments

On December 3rd, Andrea Austoni said:

Hi,
thanks for the kind words. I am not a woman, though! So please change the text.

On December 3rd, harshad s umrotkar said:

hi
i m from India
this is very very very nice effect, i like this very much
thank u so much

On December 5th, Anonymous said:

Nice simple tutorials, though there are a number of things I'd do different, especially on the stars and wood texture, and the fake miniature photography thing, using masks is often superior and this effect could have been done in 3 steps as well, with much more flexibility after the fact.

On December 10th, Fred said:

Oh, Andrea -- I am very sorry !!! I believe you even told me that at one point, but I guess in the process of getting the story online I completely messed up. My apologies!

Still great stuff, isn't it, folks?

We're looking forward to more and more!

On March 2nd, Anonymous said:

Very nice little tutorials.. By the way I'm Nico from Philippines.. Can I have your e-mail please?

On April 3rd, Pat Jordan said:

So, it's a web page, Fred, change the "him" to "HER" already! I am with you Andrea, as a female (although my name can be mistaken for male or female gender) it is important to me to be referred to correctly, especially when you have contributed this great tutorial.... very, nice and one I will use, by the way.

On June 6th, LG said:

Nice and very very nice. I am interested about u. Let me no what r u doing now. I am engaged in 3d modelling and animated movie making company. This is my own company. I have already made Sinbad which is waiting for on air. Thanks.

On June 25th, darenn rose said:

I really liked reading your post!. Quallity content. With such a valuable blog i believe you deserve to be ranking ..very Useful!

LOVE your Facebook page by the way ... http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=328254459789

On September 8th, Vipin said:

M visiting this site for the first time and I guess this is going to be a long love affair.
God bless all guys and gals who r helping people like us.

On October 28th, Anonymous said:

That is NOT how you do fake miniature photography.

On October 30th, Fred Showker said:

So, anonymous ... if this is NOT the way to do it, perhaps you'd like to provide us all with a more formal tutorial -- and show us how it's actually done!

There are now a whole array of plug-ins you can get for Photoshop that do exactly the same thing ... many are actually BASED ON THIS type of image manipulation.

But all our readers would seriously appreciate your contribution and insights on doing "fake" miniature photography.

Okay?

Just tell me about it here: http://www.graphic-design.com/contact.html

:-)

On December 16th, Anonymous said:

I LOVE IT!

On January 10th, 319sts said:

Good work, it's pleasure to read your posts. Waiting for more

On March 6th, Anonymous said:

f__k you .this one is really interpreting me so much .this one is disgusting performance of you.i think you leave graphic design and take to bowl on road.