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!

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!

Stayed tuned for a lighting break down of this shoot

Yesterday I did a shoot with my best friend testing new lighting set ups. I have posted the new images in my portfolio.

1.  If you have retouched the image and made density corrections, press crtl-shift-alt-E to make a merged copy of the image.

If you are working from the original image, press crtl-J. Name this layer Softlight.

2. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and apply with a radius between 5 px – 10px .

3. Change the blend mode of the Softlight layer to Softlight.

4. Open the Layer Style Palette and move the Blend If black sliders to 25, then hold alt to split them and move the other slider to 100.

5. Apply a Channel Mixer adjustment layer.

6. Move the Channel Mixer adjustment layer to underneath the Softlight layer.

Here’s the final image and two other variations on the same effect:

The first version is as described in the tutorial above. The second image has the dress masked out on the Channel Mixer adjustment layer. The third image has the skin masked out on the Channel Mixer layer, then a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer is clipped in to the softlight layer, with the saturation set at -100, with everything bar the skin masked out.

Here you can download the action on its own:

Quick Antique Colouring Action (3.8 KiB)

Or you can download the whole set here: AllyKatDesign Actions

1.  If you have retouched the image and made density corrections, press crtl-shift-alt-E to make a merged copy of the image.

If you are working from the original image, press crtl-J. Name this layer Overlay.

2. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and apply with a radius between 5 px – 10px .

3. Change the blend mode of the Overlay layer to Overlay.

4. Open the Layer Style Palette and move the Blend If black sliders to 25, then hold alt to split them and move the other slider to 100.

5. Apply a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and lower the saturation to -50.

6. Clip the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to the Overlay layer.

Here’s the final image:

Here you can download the action on its own:

Saturated Glow Action (3.4 KiB)

Or you can download the whole set here: AllyKatDesign Actions

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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1.  If you have retouched the image and made density corrections, press crtl-shift-alt-E to make a merged copy of the image.

If you are working from the original image, press crtl-J. Name this layer Screen and change the blend mode of this layer to Screen.

2. Press crtl-shift-alt-E to make a merged copy, name this layer Multiply and change the blend mode to Multiply.

3. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and apply with a radius of 3 px.

Here’s the final image:

Here you can download the action on its own:

Orton Effect Action (2.9 KiB)

Or you can download the whole set here: AllyKatDesign Actions

1.  If you have retouched the image and made density corrections, press crtl-shift-alt-E to make a merged copy of the image.

If you are working from the original image, press crtl-J. Change the blend mode of this layer to Multipy.

2. Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and lower the saturation to -45.

3. Add a levels adjustment layer and change the property of the white slider to 200.

4. Add a curves adjustment layer and pull the curve up in the middle to lighten the image..

Here’s the final image:

Here you can download the action on its own:

Bleach Bypass Action (3.9 KiB)

Or you can download the whole set here: AllyKatDesign Actions