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 …

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 …

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the Holga 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.
2. Now go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Apply the filter with a 5px radius.

3. Add a layer mask and apply a Radial Gradient with white set as your foreground colour.

I usually apply this over a face in the photo. …

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the High Contrast 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, then press crtl-J to create another copy.
If you are working from the original image, press crtl-J twice.
Name the first copied layer Black & White and the second Soft Light.

2. Turn off the Soft Light layer. Select the layer Black & White and press crtl-shift-U to …

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the Hollywood Highlights 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, skip this step.
2. Press crtl-alt-tilde (~) to load the highlights in the image.

3. Press crtl-J to duplicate the image and name the layer highlights.

4. Press crtl then click on the new layer to load the selection. Click …

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the dream glow effect, that you can find in my latest group of actions.

1. If you are working off the original image, press crt-J to duplicate the layer. If you have retouched the image and made density corrections, press crtl-shift-alt-E to make a merged copy of the image.

2. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and apply with a radius of approx 10px. This will give the image a nice glow.

3. Change the blend mode to screen.  Then right click on the …

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 …

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 …