Thursday, March 31, 2011

Adding Vivid Lighting to a Flat Image

In this tutorial, I show you how to spice up a flat photo with vivid lighting. Notice the difference between the first and final images. We will also be adding clouds to accomplish this.


Open up your image in Photoshop


Next, click on the Lasso tool  and choose the Polygonal lasso tool. Select the unwanted portion of the image which, basically, is the sky. Zoom in and take your time. Delete the selection.


Next, go to Filter > Render > Lighting effects and move the ellipse to make light shine from the top left corner as shown.


Now, hit Ctrl + J  to duplicate the layer. Next  apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to the layer with a radius of 3.


Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate to desaturate the layer. Then change the blending mode of this duplicated layer to Overlay.



Next, we have to find suitable clouds to match our image. Once you've done that, open it in a new window.


Transfer the clouds to the original file and place its layer below that of the castle. Position it suitably. Duplicate the cloud layer by pressing Ctrl + J and change the blending mode of this duplicated layer to Multiply.


Now, hide all (both) the castle layers by clicking on the small eye next to the layers in the layer window. Merge the cloud layers into a new layer by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E. Reduce the opacity of the new layer to 50% and change the blending mode of this layer to Overlay.



You should get something like this


To finish off, sharpen the desaturated castle layer by applying Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen and presto, your image is ready!


No comments:

Post a Comment