This was an accidental technique that I stumbled upon while trying to convert to black and white (I'll write up my method soon). Part of what I do is create a gradient map and then duplicate it and set it to soft light for contrast. Well, this particular time I duplicated the background layer instead and got a pretty neat effect. I kept going with it and I'm pleased with the outcome. Added a texture and I'm super proud of it.
First open a photo in your editor. I'm using PSE 6. I've made a few adjustments in ACR and worked on her eyes just a bit.
Next step is to turn it black and white. I use a gradient map. If you have another method, just make sure that there is a layer of the original and the black and white is a copy on another layer.
Duplicate the background, set the blend mode to soft light and drag it to the top of the layer stack.
I liked this so far, but felt it needed a little more punch. It's good, but it's just too desaturated for me. I duplicated the background layer again, set the blend mode to color and put it on top of the stack. I reduced the opacity to 50%.
I felt like this could use a little highlight at this point, so I duplicated the background again and set the blend to screen and used a rather low opacity.
I duplicated the background and used the dodge tool on her eyes, with the different layers they got a little lost. Dodging on a layer gives you a chance to pull it back if it's too much.
I was done there, but it was just missing something, so I added a texture. The texture is courtesy of Melissa from Groovy Chick. It's the Sandstorm texture.
There are multiple ways of placing a texture on an image. For this example I placed it on the photo (file>place).
Then I transformed it until it covered the entire image.
Using different blend modes can be fun at this point, the light modes give a wide range of different looks. Screen and multiply are also great. I'm using soft light.
The final version, using the photo corner frames courtesy of Rita from CoffeeShop
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