Definition of frustrating: trying to re create sin city rain and having to trawl through a bunch of useless tutorials that just say the same thing over and over again! Never fear loyal readers, I have perfected the perfect sin city rain effect.
Here’s the first lot of rain that I came up with using all the tutorials that I found online:

Basically the formula for this rain is as follows:

New layer> Fill 50% grey
Filter>Add Noise>Add Noise, Amount 400%, Gaussian, monochrome
Transform: 500% with the little link button pressed.
Filter>Blur>Motion Blur, angle 75, distance …

I’ve received a lot of requests from people asking about my work flow and how to achieve the same results. I’m going to show you how to recreate this image:

The hard work was done with my lighting set up in order to get the right shadows and highlights. The lighting set up that I used is called butterfly lighting, where the soft box is in front of the model, pointing down at a 45⁰ angle approximately a foot to two feet above the camera. I also had a hair light …

After a bit research, I have developed a range of Jill Greenburg Backgrounds that you can use to spice up your studio images.
As you can see below, the huge effect the background of the image has. The mood can be warmer, colder, more professional, girly or tough.
The following gradients are just on step closer for to unlock the mysterious Jill Greenburg’s technique, without spending thousands on the lighting set up and backgrounds.

The above images show the difference between the original image and the effect of the different backgrounds.
The gradients come …

Hello loyal readers of my blog , I have launched a set of AllyKatDesign Actions to make photoshopping your images a little bit easier, especially if you’re like me and want everything NOW!

A couple of the actions are set up for a flattened image, while others will work on a layered file, which means that you can make all the “beauty” adjustments for instance first, then use the action as a finishing touch. All the actions also put all the layers into a folder, so that you can go …

Been a little while since I have written a tutorial, so I thought I would make it a good one
I’ve been thinking again about the earlier Dave Hill tutorial that I have written and I don’t think that I did his work justice, so here’s take two Again I’m using the Topaz Adjust Filter to speed things up a little.
I looked at the Dave Hill website again (nice upgrade btw!) and carefully studied all the elements again:

Everything is usually in focus and sharp, so foreground and …

Hey everyone, sorry that its been so long between updates, so I’ve decided to make this a good one ^_^
For a while now I have been fascinated with the style of Jill Greenburg. Such beautiful emotive portraits, set against beautiful backgrounds.
After studying the key elements of her portraits, now its time to unlock the secrets. If you look at her work, the backgrounds are usually one colour lit with a spotlight an the people have been photoshopped to varying degrees of glowyness.
So this is what we want to retain when …

Dave Hill is one photographer that I have a lot of awe for. I love the way he creates his images. Some people may say that they are too stylised or cartoonish but after trying to recreate his work, I found that its a lot of work! Even a lot of the tutorials that are around don’t come close to what he does. I believe that I may have cracked it the Dave Hill secret finally. I do welcome feedback in regards to what I have created.
Here are the two …

Ahh the joys of having the day off and surfing the net! Feels great after having some many none stop go go go days.
During my surfing of various photography websites, I found this little gem hiding away. The website is Poladroid and you can download this nifty little program where it will turn any jpeg image to a polaroid photo. All you do is drag the image to the front of the camera icon, where it loads up and then makes a clicking noise and process the image. The image …

Phew xmas is over!! What a turbulent time. I apologise for my silence as of late, but it seems that everyone needs a rush job done before xmas!
So I have organised a little treat for my loyal readers and gathered up all the popular t-shirt designs by AllykatDesign.
RedBubble

From the RedBubble Collection I have included the four top sellers: Inspired by Dexter and Gothic themes.
space
If you would like to see more t-shirts you can have a look here: view all t-shirts designs or for all artwork you can have a …

In part 1 of editing with blending modes, we had a look at adjusting density using screen and multiply modes, now we are going to look at how to change the look of a photo using gaussian blur, blend modes and the blend if grey sliders.
Using the blend modes to adjust density
High Key Glows
Step 1
Correct the density and any flaws in the photo.
Step 2
Duplicate the layer and go to filter>blur>gaussian blur. Use a radius of 10px to 30px, depending on the resolution of the photo and the desired effect.
For the …