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This tutorial is to help you learn how professional photo editors accent
specific parts of a picture in order to lead their viewers attention
into certain places. With this technique you can darken what
is not important and brighten what is important to your photo.
This technique uses a 50% gray overlay layer. But remember
that this example is a somewhat extreme demonstration of this
method, it is more commonly used to create very subtle accents.
1. First of all, create a new Layer
(Layer>New>Layer).
2. Then when the New
Layer Dialog box comes up Choose Overlay from the Mode drop
menu, and Then check the box that says, "Fill with Overlay-neutral
color (50% gray)"
3. Then choose a big preferably soft
paintbrush and set the opacity down to somewhere between 7% and 14%.
4. To Darken Areas:
with the color black carefully stroke your paintbrush on the Overlay
layer that you created.
5. To Brighten
Areas: with the color white carefully stroke your
paintbrush on the Overlay layer that you created.
In case your curious about how much adjustment I made
to this photo, this is what my overlay layer looked like when I
was done. You can see how the light spot on the overlay
layer helps the grapes stand out. For different photos, the
process and amount of adjustment won't be exactly the same.
But with this technique you can attract a viewers eye to any subject
that you want. You can brighten shadows on people's faces, or
darken the flash bulb effect on a photo. This technique
becomes almost a necessity to touching-up any photo once you get
used to using it. |
