I recently published an article about a new set of actions that I have created – the Lomo effect action set and I have had a bunch of emails sent through to me asking for a tutorial, showing step by step how to achieve it, so here it is

Difficulty: Basic – Intermediate

Completion time: 1/2 to 1 hour

Tools: Adobe PhotoshopCS +

Resources

Your image

or

The stock image used for this tutorial is from TwiggXstock and can be found here.

What you’ll be creating

Note: For Mac users, the correspondent keys for CTRL and ALT are CMD and OPTION.

STEP 1

Open the image that you want to create the lomo effect in photoshop and apply a brightness/contrast adjustment layer.

The settings that I used:

Brightness – 10

Contrast – 10

STEP 2

Then apply the following settings to a levels  adjustment layer.

The settings that I used:

Red Channel – shadow input level -39 and highlight input level – 223

Green Channel – shadow input level -39 and highlight input level – 223

STEP 3

Create a new blank layer and fill it with white, setting the blend mode of the layer to multiply. Then go to Filter>Distort>Lens Correction and apply the following setting: Lens Correction : -100. Leave all the other settings at the default.

STEP 4

Press crtl-shift-alt-E to create a merged copy of what you are working on. Go to Filters>Blur> Gaussian Blur.

The setting that I used:

Radius – 10px.

Optional

If you’re  so inclined you can also add a light leak to your image by using a gradient adjustment layer.

STEP 1

Apply a gradient adjustment layer to the top of all of your layers.

The colour I have used here is: #ff6e02

To create your own gradient open up the  gradient editor and place three different stops along the bottom like the screenshot:

1. location 0%
2. location  8%
3. location 100%

Then make sure that you have 4 opacity stops at the top.

1. location 0% with opacity 0%
2. location 8% with opacity 100%
3. location 20% with opacity 0%
4. location 100% with opacity 100%

You can also change the colour of the light leak or the intensity by moving the stops around.

STEP 2

Change the blend mode of the adjustment layer to pin light and the opacity to 90% and you’re done!

You can also download the lomo action set, which contains 8 different lomo effects and 3 light leak effects.

Lomo Effect (29.7 KiB)

And preview the 8 different effects in this post: Lomo Action Set

Here’s a couple of examples of the actions in action

Stock Image:  ~hatestock

Stock Image : ~Alraunie-stock

One thing that I miss so much is film photography. Its getting harder and harder to obtain film and to process it, but this isn’t a rant about the cost of processing film  this is about how to recreate the lomo effect!

Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Accidents such as over-saturated colors, lens artifacts, and exposure defects are rehabilitated to produce swirly, abstract effects – a trait emphasized by practitioners. Others use the technique to document everyday life, because the small camera size and ability to shoot in low light encourages candid photography, photo reportage and photo vérité.

~ http://www.lomophoto.com/

I have created a set of actions to recreate this kind of look.

There are 8 different lomo actions included in the set, which effects you can see above.

I have also included 3 different light leak effects, they are shown here one their own.

Or you can mix the light leaks and the lomo effect together!

The image on the left is Lomo Action 4 + Add Small Light Leak Action.

The image on the right is Lomo Action 8 + Small Light Leak Action + Another Light Leak Action.

The stock image is from TwiggXstock and can be found here.

Lomo Effect (29.7 KiB)

This seems like an easy thing to do but I’ve noticed that people are still asking about it So here’s how you can achieve this effect with this easy to follow tutorial. All the edits that you are doing are 100% none destructive, which means that you can go back at any time and tweak the different layers to your liking.

Difficulty: Basic – Intermediate

Completion time: 1/2 to 1 hour

Tools: Adobe PhotoshopCS1 +

Resources

The image you want to convert to B&W with a splash of colour

or

The stock gallery can be found here if you want some other images to play with

http://glamourousacid-stock.deviantart.com/

What you’ll be creating

Note: For Mac users, the correspondent keys for CTRL and ALT are CMD and OPTION.

STEP 1

Open the image that your using in photoshop and apply a channel mixer adjustment layer.

The settings that I used were the default Black and White with red filter (RGB) which is red – 100%

STEP 2

The on the mask with a soft brush, using black as the foreground colour, you just mask out the part of the image that you want in colour.

And that’s basically it. You can also use a hue/saturation adjustment layer and the black and white adjustment layer in the same fashion. I prefer the channel mixer as it give a lot more control over how the black and white will look in the end.

Optional:

You can also duplicate the back ground layer, and place it above the channel mixer layer, change the blend mode to soft light and create a muted colour instead of black and white.

Here’s the same effect, but the blend mode is set to overlay:

And here the blend mode is set to screen with lips masked out again.

Handy tip: When applying the same mask again, hold the alt key and drag the mask up. This will duplicate the mask without you needing to redo it all over again!

The lips look a little washed out here, so lets duplicate the background layer again, place it on top of the layer stack, change the blend mode to multiply, apply the same mask as the screen layer, but press ctrl-i with the mask selected to invert it and change the opacity to 50%.

So there you have a quick and easy black and white image with selective colour and few more bonus techniques on how to make your images pop!

I would love to see what you come up with and any feedback that you may have.

Ok so we have slugged through white balance and how to expose an image, now we are going to learn how to compose an image.

I have detailed some basic principles of composition in this article and then gone into some more depth with different ways of composing, such as the golden mean, the rule of thirds and the golden spiral.

Basic principles of composition

• Center of interest: Decide what the focal point of your image is before composing.
• Simplicity: Avoid busy backgrounds. Keep the composition simple.
• Subject off center: Place a subject slightly off-center rather than in the middle of a photo.
• Horizon lines: Don’t place the horizon right in the middle of the image. This also applies to any strong horizontal or vertical lines. Also ensure that the lines aren’t tilted.
• Leading lines: Strong lines should lead the eye to the main point of interest, not out of the frame.
• Foreground objects: Don’t be afraid to include an interesting object in the foreground of a scene. It can can add depth, dimension and a point of reference.
• Vary angles: Different angles can show the subject from a different view point. Move the camera around. You can shoot looking down (birds eye) or looking up (worms eye).
• Framing: Frame your subject by using zoom or moving closer. Draw attention to what you are shooting.
• Silhouettes: The subject of your image doesn’t always need to be brightly lit. Try finding photographing  backlit subjects.
• Reflections: Adds an interesting, sometimes abstract, look to a photo.
• Symmetry: An identical or near-identical image of its other half. Use of symmetry often provides a formal balance.

There are no hard and fast rules for composition of an image. There are five different ways to help us, but they are only used as guidelines rather than rules.

Golden Ratio

The golden ratio is a principle that has been around for hundreds of years. It has been used by Leonardo Da Vinci, who investigated the principle that underlies our notions of beauty and harmony, but before that Egyptian, Babylonian and ancients Greek masters also applied this principle in architecture and art.

The Golden Ratio shows us that certain points in an image attract the viewers attention. The same in regards to nature or man made objects with certain proportions will automatically please us, whether this is by chance or design.

As shown above, the image is divided into 9 unequal parts. Each line is drawn so that the width of the resulting small part of the image relates to that of the big part exactly as the width of the whole image relates to the width of the big part. Points where the lines intersect are the “golden” points of the picture:

Rule of thirds

This method of composition is probably the most well know one. All budding photographers are taught this, as well they should, because it creates well balanced and interesting shots. This is a simplified version of the Golden Ratio.

The principle is very simple. You are just breaking down the image into thirds, horizontally and then vertically. You then are placing the points of interest along those lines.

As you can see from the example below, I have placed the old man on the crutches on the far right hand side of the image, with a wake of swan trailing behind him. I deliberately placed the sky in the top third, the  sea at the middle and the beach sand on the bottom third to make him the focal point of the image.

The theory of the rule if thirds is that if you have points of interest of interest in the intersections of the lines or on the lines, your image is better balanced and enables the viewer to interact with it more naturally. Different studies have shown that people when viewing images, their eyes go to the intersecting lines naturally  rather than the centre of the image. So by using the rules of thirds, it helps viewing the image rather than working against it.

Golden Spiral

The golden spiral is another way to compose an image. A lot of images that are taken in the fashion are usually flowers, but it can be applied to any image to make it well composed and dynamic. As you can see from the example above, the spiral uncoils starting with the snail, then flows out into the larger part. The focal point is the smallest coil, which is nearer the corner. this means that the viewers eye is drawn to the focal point and then is taken through the image as it unfolds around the golden ratio.

As you can see there are few different methods of how to compose your images, making them more dynamic and interesting to the viewer.

Have fun composing

Welcome to the new AllyKatDesign Forum!

Feel free to come and have a look around, register, ask your questions and receive your answers! Make it your happy place that has all the answers that you seek

See you there!

Let’s go there now!

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Last week I worked with Tiffany again, a model that I have worked with for about two years now. She is an absolute pleasure to work with and I always get amazing images with her

These images have been minimally photoshopped as the lighting and exposure was perfect in camera.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure with shooting with the gorgeous Emily from Model Mayhem. It was a gangster styled shoot and also another chance for me to practise new lighting set ups. She was truly a wonderful inspiration to work with!

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:

1. New layer> Fill 50% grey
2. Filter>Add Noise>Add Noise, Amount 400%, Gaussian, monochrome
3. Transform: 500% with the little link button pressed.
4. Filter>Blur>Motion Blur, angle 75, distance approx 400 (depending on size of image)
5. Set the layer on screen, then duplicate and mask out the offending rain.

As you can see its pretty uniform rain, not very exciting and not at all like the rain that you see in the posters. The lines aren’t thick enough and it looks pretty boring

Here’s the rain that I came up with:

It all came to help with these two brushes that I came up with:

Rain Brushes (9.0 KiB)

Basically all I did to come up with this effect was the following:

1. Two layers with rain underneath the person, first on set at 25% opacity, the top one at 50% opacity to create a look of depth to the image.
2. Then another layer at the top of the image, set at 100% opacity. Just mask out any rain that doesn’t belong.
3. A new layer with the splash II brush across the shoulders and the gun.

Yay all done. Its so much easier than messing around with noise and motion blur etc. You can also change the size of the brush depending on how you want the rain to look, direction etc.

To finish the image off you can add some authentic sin city text and a quote from the movie that will fit in with the person:

The sin city font was done in colour: #ff0000, rotated with layer style>Drop Shadow, Angle: 141, Distance: 21px, spread 4%, size: 0px.

P. S. You can’t see the layer style in this pic unless you move it over to an area that has white in it.

The quote  was done with a shape layer, with the colour set to white and a layer style>Stroke, size: 10px, position:inside, colour black.

Find the sin city font here: Dafont and the writing font here: Blambot

So easy once you know how Enjoy recreating your sin city posters!

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 with barn doors on a boom directly above the models head, so that her hair wouldn’t disappear into the background and to give highlights across the shoulders.

You can also add a reflector at the front to bounce the light and fill in the shadows under the nose and chin if you wish.

This is a beautiful and flattering light, which enhances the right features and smoothes out others. Also depending on how the model poses, you can achieve different effects with the same set up.

1. As you can see the image on the left is a perfect example of butterfly lighting and how beautifully it can light the subject, when they are facing straight on the camera.
2. In the centre image that we’re working on, you can see that the lighting still flatters when the model turns her face to the side.
3. In the image on the right, the same lighting was still used, but the model leaned forward creating a harsher effect that is still striking never the less.

All three of these photos were edited in the same way.

This is the image as shot in camera:

You can see that because we got the lighting right in the studio and the exposure correct, the raw image doesn’t need a lot of work, ie playing with adding in shadows, highlights or fixing spots that are too dark or overexposed etc.

The next step is to do a quick correction, where under eye circles are minimised and blemishes retouched. The model is a bit rosy as it was hot the day this image was taken, so I’ve gone through and evened out her skin tone and then did an overall skin softening.

So the layers that have been created so far:

• Skin retouch with the clone tool set at 50% opacity
• Color fill layer, set to blend mode hue and 50% opacity with a mask for the skin only to reduce redness.
• Skin smoothing layer that softens the skin.

All of these layers are in a group labelled skin retouch.

I applied a channel mixer adjustment layer to convert the image to black and white.

I then created a composite  layer of all retouched layers, excluding the channel mixer layer, placed on the top of the layer stack and changed the blend mode to overlay. This increased the contrast and saturation of image in a controllable way.

Final step here is to fill in the colour of her lips as they seem to fade away into the background. I did this with another colour fill layer, with the blend mode set to soft light.

So the layers that you will end up with are the following:

• Skin retouch with the clone tool set at 50% opacity
• Colour fill layer, set to blend mode hue and 50% opacity with a mask for the skin only to reduce redness.
• Skin smoothing layer that softens the skin.

All of these layers are in a group labelled skin retouch.

• Channel mixer layer
• Composite layer of all the retouched layers with blend mode set to overlay
• Colour fill layer, set to blend mode softlight with a mask for the lips only.

So there it is, from start to finish. You can add in a few extra steps, such as a curves adjustment layer underneath the overlay layer to bring out the shadows a bit more, or you can run a high pass to sharpen the image up or just selective sections of it, such as her hair and necklace with a mask, the possibilities are only limited by how you envision the final product.

Happy Shooting!

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 with a bonus tutorial of how to apply the gradients to get the best effect and a bonus texture to help create a more realistic look to your images.

Jill Greenburg Backgrounds

Recreate Jill Greenburg Backgrounds quickly and easily using these gradients. Also included with the gradients is a handy tutorial showing the a few simple techniques to achieve the best of the backgrounds provided.

$5.00Price:

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