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 …

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure with shooting with the gorgeous Georgia-Leigh from Model Mayhem. It was a rock and roll styled shoot and also another chance for me to practise new lighting set ups. It was an incredibly fun challenge to get the images as close to perfect in camera, with only minimal photoshopping afterwards.

Stayed tuned for a lighting break down of this shoot

A week ago I had the pleasure of shooting with Naomi. It was her first time in front of the camera and she did brilliantly

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

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the Quick  Antique Colouring effect, that you can find in my latest group of 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 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 …

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the High Saturation effect, that you can find in my latest group of 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 …

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 …

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the Orton effect, that you can find in my latest group of 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 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 …

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the Bleach Bypass effect, that you can find in my latest group of 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 …