The non-professional photographers among us are often left with boring and flat shots from our cameras, the photos lack the flair and energy that is achieved with expert techniques and equipment. Photoshop Actions on the other hand, can help recreate some amazing photo effects, just by pressing a button! This post rounds up 20 of the best Photoshop Actions that allow you to easily spice up your photos with popular effects, including HDR, Soft Focus, Lomo, Velvia and more!

The Original

To test out each Photoshop Action, and to allow the action to be compared against other actions on the same shot I’ve downloaded this sample image, courtesy of SXC. Compare this shot with each of the following actions, which one is your favourite?

Fuji Velvia Effect

Recreate the popular photo effect originally created by using Fuji’s Velvia range of film, with this fab action from Pibweb.

Sepia Effect

Create a simple vintage Sepia toning effect with this action from 4thDynasty

Dark and Cold Photo Effect

This cool Photoshop Action from David Nanchin creates an eery dark and cold effect.

Soft Focus Effect

HD Stock’s Soft Elegance action produces a slightly blurred image with high contrast and a green tone.

HDR Effect

HDR photo effects are all the rage. Easily create your own high dynamic range photograph without any specialist techniques with this action from Forfie

High Contrast Vintage Photo Effect

Create an awesome old-time effect with this action from SD Stock. Key features include high contrast, adjusted colour balance and heavy vignette.

Cold Blue Colour Cast Effect

Produce a cold colour cast with high contrast with this second action from SD Stock.

Retro Colour Cast

Give your photos the typical retro look with this colour adjusting action from Amatorka.

Continue Learning…

In this tutorial I will give you some tips on how to take your own photos for the photo manipulation. You will learn, how to blend pictures, apply textures, create your own brushes etc. So let’s get started!

Final Image Preview

Take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Want access to the full PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final image preview below.

Tutorial Details

• Program : Photoshop CS and Higher
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Estimated Completion Time: Around 3 hours

Step 1 – Preparation for Taking the Photos

Usually tutorials start with a list of stock photos you should download. But today we’ll make it differently. The only one thing you have to do is to take your camera outside and shoot your own images! Don’t worry, it doesn’t take much of your time and you don’t have to be an awesome photographer.

If you want to take stock photos it’s good to do it when it is cloudy outside because in this case you will have no strong directional light from the sun but nice diffuse light, which will be easy to change in your graphic program to fit with the global light of your photo manipulation.

When you’re taking stock photos it’s always a good to take it from different angles and directions because you never know what you will find useful for your photo. And it would be bad if you would have a perfect photo, but you would need it just rotated a little different.

Step 2 – Taking Photos for the Background

As I said before, take your camera outside and take the picture which will suit for the background. For this manipulation we need an easy background with not so much details on it. This absence of details helps the mood which we’ll try be creating of a hopeless situation or feeling of loneliness or emptiness.

As you can see in the picture below, I used a simple photo of the concrete behind my house. A photo of some empty parking place,field or road would be great too. You can see the angle from which I took the photo.

Step 3 – Taking Photos of The Sky

This is very easy. Just wait for some cloudy weather (there will be a lot of cloudy days during autumn), open a window and shoot a few pictures of sky. Shaped clouds are the best because the sky will not be boring. It should be dramatical and this type of clouds is best for it.

On the picture below you can see what kind of sky I mean.

And below is an example of the sky which doesn’t look as good.

Step 4 – Taking the Photo Texture for the Monument

It’s very easy again. For the monument we’ll use texture of some beaten wall – so just stand in front of some wall and shoot it It’s good to stand directly in front of the wall because this way there will be no perspective distortion in the photo.

If you want to use exactly this texture (shown above) you can download the texture pack from my deviantArt page, but I recommend you shoot your own.

Step 5 – Taking Photos of People

This is the last step before we start to do the photo manipulation. Take your camera to a train station or another similar place where there is a big concentration of people. Be a little like a paparazzi, and shoot some of them. Don’t worry if you’re shy, you can shoot them from a distance (depends on the zoom of your camera).

It would be enough to have five or six types of people for what we’ll be creating.

Step 6 – Preparing the Background

After you downloaded all necessary photos from your camera to the computer open Photoshop and drag the picture of the ground and of the sky into one document. Name the layer’s appropriately as: “GROUND” and “SKY.” Make sure that “SKY” is above the “GROUND.” It’s always good to name all the layers. This way you can orientate everything better in your PSD file.

Add a vector mask to the “SKY.” You can find the button Add Vector Mask at the bottom part of the Layers palette. If you don’t see the Layers just press F7 and it will appear.

It is better to use a vector mask instead of the Eraser Tool because this way all the steps you do are non destructive, and you can change them anytime. If you paint with a black color over the vector mask, then the picture disappears. If you want to have it visible again, the only thing you have to do is paint white over it.

After you have vector mask added to the “SKY,” grab the Brush Tool (B), select a soft round brush, pick black for the color, and paint over the areas which should be hidden. Change to a smaller size of brush for more precise blending. You can also change the opacity of the brush to get a better result.

After this step, my manipulation looks like the image below. Yours should be similar, but it depends on your stock pictures used.

If your background doesn’t look realistic you can try one of two tricks. At first you can use the Spherize Filter, which will help you to add more space into the manipulation. To use it go to Filter > Distort > Spherize… and set the Amount to a negative value.

The next thing you can do is transform the perspective. To do it go to Edit > Transform > Perspective and transform your “GROUND” layer as you need.

What I did in my manipulation is that I added texture to the ground to add more details. If you want to try it too, you can use the texture you took for the monument. Open the picture with texture, drag it into the manipulation, place it above the “GROUND” (you can also create a Clipping Mask from it), and name it “TEXTURE FOR GROUND.” Now change the Opacity of the layer and also the Blending Mode. I just changed Blending Mode to Overlay.

As you can see the ground should have more cyan tones than it has now. To fix that add a new adjustment layer of Color Balance above the “GROUND” layer. If you don’t know how to add an adjustment layer, then look at the image below.

Click on the button which is circled and select Color Balance. The button is on the same palette (Layers) as the Add Vector Mask button which we used a few steps back.

Set the Color Levels to: -6, 0, and +12 in Midtones and press OK.

I think it would be better if the whole background would be a little darker. To do that add an adjustment layer of Levels above the “GROUND” and “SKY.” Set Input Levels to: 31; 0,85; 255 and press OK.

Step 7 – Creating the Monument

In this step we will create the monument. Open the picture of texture you took and drag it into your photo manipulation. Name the layer “MONUMENT.” Resize it to proper proportions. To do that press Command + T, and hold Shift to make the picture smaller. If you hold Shift, then the width and height will have the same proportion as they had before.

Press Command + T again and make the picture a little slimmer. Then go to Edit > Transform > Perspective and change the perspective so the monument will be slimmer on the top and wider on the bottom.

Continue Learning…

Have you ever come across a photo where all the highlights and shadows seem just too good to be true? If it’s not HDR processing, it’s pen tablet magic. Find out in this tutorial how to give a regular image a subtle, artistic feel with some clever brush work. Read more after the jump!

Final Image Preview

Take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Want access to the full PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final image preview below or a larger version here.

Step 1

The first thing you need to do is download this photo of a tiger. Paste it in a new blank document (1575px by 1055px at 300 dpi). Rotate it and place it as shown in the image below. Also, while having the background layer selected press Command + I to invert it to black.

Step 2

Now it’s time to separate the tiger from the background. We also want to fade the image out gradually, so the most efficient way is to do both of these tasks at the same time. By changing the background color to black, all we have to do now is erase portions of the tiger.

To avoid any damage to the photo though, we’ll do that through a Layer Mask. With the tiger’s layer active, go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All. From now on, anything you paint within the Layer Mask with black will disappear. If you feel you’ve erased too much, paint with white to bring back parts of the image.

It’s important that you do this with a tablet and at very low levels of Opacity. The idea is for the transitions to be very subtle, so sometimes when painting over dark regions with white, 1-5% Opacity is best to work with. For this step, begin to darken the background of the image to black. Use something around 10% Opacity.

Step 3

Eliminate as much as you can with the background, but don’t go over the tiger itself.

Step 4

Reduce the brush size and go right up to the outline of the tiger. Try not to completely erase the whiskers. They’ll be difficult to bring back if you’re not sure where they are.

Step 5

Now use a large brush and cover the left side of its face and the top of the body. Add a little black on the lower part too.

Step 6

Now change the forward color to white and bring back the ear by painting over it with 100% Opacity.

Step 7

Change to black again, lower the Opacity considerably and darken the center of the ear.

Step 8

Darken the neck by focusing on the stripes. Leave the white portions somewhat visible.

Step 9

By now, only the tiger’s head should be visible, and portions of the neck.

Step 10

With 1-5% Opacity, bring back some of the white parts of the chest area. Fading out the body shouldn’t be abrupt and uniform. Since its fur is not flat, you’ll still be able to see some of the white parts of the neck.

Step 11

And that should be it for separating the image from the background. Because the background color is solid black, it looks a bit odd now, but it will look just right with a few Adjustment Layers at the end.

Step 12

Now it’s time to add highlights and shadows. In this before and after photo you can see the basic principle of everything we’re about to do from now on.

On a separate layer, use white as the foreground color to paint linear highlights. To add contrast, switch to black and darken in the same way. You’ll have to judge where you think all these will apply, so it’s not an exact science at all. A more reflective surface like the fangs will have thinner and brighter outlines, while the tongue will require a more spread out reflection.

Step 13

Paint a white stroke along the margin of the tongue. Also, add a touch of white over the center, but don’t just use a large brush size. Use a 2px brush on low Opacity and paint according to the texture of the tongue.

Step 14

For the fangs, paint along the edges and a bit near the center.

Step 15

The reflection of the nose is different from the white lines we’ve created so far. Instead of painting straight lines over the center of the nose, lower the Opacity even more and paint with a circular motion of the hand.

Continue Learning…

This is a tutorial with a simple idea: to create an emotional photo manipulation. Following this tutorial, you will learn how to blend different images to make a dark atmospheric background, modify the dress of the model, apply makeup, paint hair,  blend different objects in the background, and more – all to create a moody illustration. So, let’s start!

Final Image Preview

Take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Want access to the full PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final image preview below.

Video Tutorial

Our video editor Gavin Steele has created this video tutorial to compliment this text + image tutorial.

Arranging the Stock Images

The photo manipulation in the tutorial was created using the following stock images:

• Melancholia Model, by mizzd-stock
• Fantasy Forest by casperium
• Autumn Leaves by Drezdany-stocks
• Falling Leaves by JLStock included in Plus download
• Vines by loveit
• Ravens by unholy-stock

Step 1

The first step is to create a new PSD. Go to File > New. I choose to work in CMYK color mode.

Step 2

The next step is to create a background. Drag the Autumn Leaves background picture into the new file. Duplicate the layer and arrange it like in the first picture. Add a layer mask and erase the edges like in the picture below so it will look natural. Duplicate the layer again, add a new layer mask, and erase the edges as shown.

Step 3

Add a Color Balance Adjustment Layer and arrange the levels to: -57, -56, +26, as shown.

Step 4

Now add an Adjustment Layer of Curves and choose 38 for the output and 27 for the input.

Step 5

Drag the Fantasy Forest picture into the file. Now add a layer mask and erase on the edges using a basic, black brush as shown.

Step 6

Go to the Autumn Leaves picture layer. Choose the Lasso Tool and insert a part of the leaves. Press Command + J . Arrange the new layer as shown.

Step 7

The next step is to cut-out the Melancholia Model. Open the picture with the model. Select the Pen Tool and cut out the model. When you closed the path right-click and Make Selection (Radius of 0 ) and then press Command + J.

Step 8

Drag the model into the main document and arrange it as shown.

Step 9

The next step is to remodel her dress, since it appears to be too short for this background. Grab the Pen Tool and cut-out a copy of the end of the dress.

Step 10

Arrange the copy as shown.

Step 11

Create a new Adjustment Layer of Curves and choose 32 output and 20 input.

Step 12

Fill the layer mask with a black color (Alt + backspace). Choose a basic brush, then with white color the shadow of the model as shown.

Step 13

Open the creepers from the Vines file. Drag them into the PSD file, and arrange them as shown.

Step 14

Now let’s paint the hair. Create a new layer and pick the color you want to be the darkest and paint the shape of the hair. Next, create a new layer and with a lighter color paint some hair. Do this operation a few times on different layers and with lighter and lighter colors until you have the right result.

Don’t do them on the same layer because if you don’t like the result you have to erase all the hair. Once you have the right result, merge all the hair layers (press the Command button, select the layers, and then press Command + E). Next select the Burn Tool and put some shadows on the hair and select the Dodge Tool for the lights. Follow the images below for guidance.

Step 15

Go to the model’s layer and select the Burn Tool. Apply some shadows on the model’s dress.

Step 16

Go to the Adjustment Layers, create a Color Balance layer, and use these settings: 0, -19, -27. Fill the layers mask with black and with white color paint the creepers.

Step 17

Next let’s paint the model’s face. Create a new layer. Select a light color of the model’s face with the Eyedropper Tool and with a basic brush (4 or 5 for Opacity) paint her face. Create a new layer and paint her eyes. Do the same for the mouth. Don’t paint them on the same layer.

Once you have a satisfying result, merge the layers (press Command, select the layers you want to merge and then press Command + E). Use the Burn Tool for the shadows of the face and the Dodge Tool for the light.

Step 18

Drag and drop the Ravens as shown.

Step 19

Create a new layer to paint the ravens’ wings and jewels, as shown below. Do the same with all the crows. For this, use a basic round brush with smooth edges.

Step 20

In this step, create a new layer and draw some shadows with a basic brush on the model’s hand. This is a minor detail, but it’s important because it makes it look natural.

Step 21

Create an Adjustment Layer of Photo filter with a Density of 25%.

see full tutorial here…