Thursday, June 02, 2016

CoffeeShop "Perfect Matte B&W" Photoshop/PSE Action!


I just blogged about the flooding rains we had late last week, and we are getting hit again this week. My sister and her kids are safe in Dallas and my mom, dad, and their dog and cat are safely booked in a hotel in town for the next few days. That way they won't get flooded in with me if the rains continue as expected. Other than my ceiling leak we are doing fine so far. It is going to be a long, stressful week.

I have had some time on the computer this morning (I needed a sanity break!) and I was able to finish my newest action called "Perfect Matte B&W". This action looks amazing on so many images and it is fully adjustable.

PSE users even have access to the Curves adjustment layer when they use this action to make that perfect "matte-effect".



Today I am using some gorgeous images from Sarah Mak Photography (Facebook). I am a huge fan of her work and I am so honored she is allowing me to use them in my tutorial. Playing with such gorgeous images (all girls!) really takes my mind off the horrid weather. :-)

CoffeeShop "Perfect Matte B&W" Photoshop/PSE Action Tutorial:


This is the original image. I LOVE LOVE LOVE  this in color, but I thought it would also be stunning in B&W.


I ran "Perfect Matte B&W". There is only one pop-up, a Curves adjustment layer. It is preset, but you can drag the circled dot around to get the perfect Matte-effect for each image. In this case I didn't want the dark background to fade away and there was too much Matte.


So I moved the curve down and to the left. I love this version!


This is what the image looks like after the action finished.


I lowered the opacity of the Brighten Whites layer to 48% to keep the white highlights on her dress from blowing out. If you have really white areas in your image you can change the blending mode of this layer to Multiply.


Then I went to the Matte layer and lowered it to 85%. Now it is a perfect matte B&W edit. ;-)

Download the CoffeeShop "Perfect Matte B&W" Photoshop/PSE action. You can also download it here or get hundreds of my actions in one download here.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures.

For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.


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4 comments:

  1. Hello,

    I have PSE 10, and I do not know how to put these in to use them, Im not sure how to check if Im using expert mode, and I cant find the actions. Can you help me?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have some links on top of my blog about installing actions in PSE10. :-)

      Delete

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Rita