Sunday, August 14, 2016

CoffeeShop "Beach Dreams Water & Sky" Photoshop/PSE Action!


Happy Sunday!  Well, it is not such a happy weekend for parts of LA and TX. The rain has been intense on the Gulf Coast. I hope all of my LA readers are high and dry. I know it is scary over there right now.

We were supposed to go to the beach (Galveston Island) this weekend but couldn't leave town due to the heavy rains. My parents are still at their old house but are not flooded in yet. The rain is coming in waves which allows it to somewhat drain away before the next heavy one hits.  Hoping and praying that this rain is not a repeat of the two 500-year floods we had a few months ago.

Our yard is soaked but so far so good. It is a perfect day to read, watch movies, and write actions.

Today I have a gorgeous new Photoshop/PSE action called "Beach Dreams Water & Sky". This action allows you to paint gorgeous bright browns and blues on your beach images and is part of my favorite beach edit "Sanibel Beach Dreams".  

You can read the complete step-by-step Action UnWrapped tutorial to see what is going "under the hood" when this action runs.

Next week I will be releasing the next action that goes with this set called "Beach Dreams Rosy Sky". This action allows you to hand paint in a stunning rosy-ivory vintage effect on the image. I love adding this to beach portraits!


 (edited with "Sanibel Beach Dreams")

If you want to grab the full "Sanibel Beach Dreams" Photoshop/PSE action that is an all-in-one beach edit  (retouching, blue sky and beach, gorgeous sand, rosy-ivory vintage effect), it is now a part of my CoffeeShop Action Download pack.  Purchasing my convenient download packs support this site and keep everything here free! And to thank you for your support there are several actions included as a special gift that are not found for free here on my blog (Sanibel Beach Dreams, Magic Retouching Make-Up Kit, and the Watermarking Kit). 

One of the many perks of purchasing my action packs is that I will send you updated packs up to two years after your initial purchase. And I usually update them weekly with new goodies! If you have purchased my action download pack within two years I will send you the newest version with "Sanibel Beach Dreams" and all of the other actions I have added since your purchase. :-)

Now let me show you how to use today's action on your image.

CoffeeShop "Beach Dreams Water & Sky" Action Tutorial:



 The gorgeous original image is by Jessica Edwards Photography.

If your image needs a pretty sky, you can read this Beach Sky tutorial. I have several free beach sky overlay sets. If you want to check out some beautiful sky overlays for purchase, you should check out Pretty Actions.


Run the action on your image. Other than a slight added brightness, there will be no other noticeable changes. You have to paint on the layer masks with a soft white brush to add the effects on your  image. You can also change the colors or blending modes of the layers if needed.


Beach Sand: I used a soft white 100% opacity brush on the "Beach Sand" layer mask to add the bright brown to the sand, hat, and the girl. I kept that layer at 100% opacity. 



The white area is where I added the "Beach Sand" layer. You can see this type of effect on your layer mask by clicking on the layer mask while holding the alt/option key.


Water:  Click on the "Water" layer mask and use a soft white brush to paint on the beach water. Then adjust the opacity to taste (62% in this edit).


Sky: Click on the "Sky" layer mask and use a soft white brush to paint on the sky. Adjust the opacity to taste (43% in this edit).


Go back and adjust the opacities of the layers if needed (I lowered the opacity of the water to make it less blue). You can also click to open up the top "Brighten" Levels adjustment layer and adjust the sliders to taste.



I hope you enjoyed this edit! Go grab the "Beach Dreams Rosy Sky" action for your next editing step!

Grab the full "Sanibel Beach Dreams" deluxe action in my download pack.



Download the Free CoffeeShop "Beach Dreams Water & Sky" Photoshop/PSE action. You can also download it here.

Do you want to download thousands of professional CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop actions (including exclusive ones not found anywhere for free), textures/overlays, scrapbooking papers, clip art/design elements, photo storyboards and frames, and Lightroom presets from this site in one convenient zipped file AND help support this one-woman blog?

Just click here for my CoffeeShop Mega Download Pack!

6 comments:

  1. So I have finally taken the time to skim through the entire Sanibel Beach tutorials. As always, your tutorials are very clear and indepth. Thanks so much and also for this action. Now it is matter of finding some time to play!

    Hope you stay relatively dry!

    Lisa D.

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    1. Thank you so much Lisa! I would love to see what you do with this tutorial. I had so much fun playing to create it. I have the best job. :-)

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  2. Hi, Rita, I've loved learning about and playing with your actions. I recently lost a bunch and have been trying to recollect some favorites, this being one of them. But link won't work anymore. Is there another to try? THanks so much!

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    1. Pawz, the first link works! I will remove the second broken link when I can get on my computer.

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  3. Hi Rita,
    You are so kind to offer all these great actions for all. I don't want to bother you about this after messaging you a couple of days ago. I downloaded your Adjust the Light and Beach Dreams Water and Sky, both of which work on my iMac but neither work on my PC. I have downloaded other actions which I purchased on Etsy and all of those work perfectly on my PC. I did not try to reset my Preferences in PS as you suggested since the other PS actions I loaded from online work perfectly on my PC. I am only contacting you again to find out if anyone else has had a problem getting the actions to work on their Windows system(I am running Windows 7). I was hoping someone else might have a "fix" for this. I'm sure it is something simple. If not, I will certainly enjoy using your actions on my iMac and again I greatly appreciate your generosity. Thank you, Mary Anne

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    1. Hi Mary Anne! I would suggest to go ahead and reset preferences. This is a good idea whenever you run into issues with any action. It doesn't hurt and I do it often on my own Photoshop.

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Thank you for taking the time to leave a message, I love reading them! All comments are personally moderated by me and I will post and answer them them as soon as possible.
Rita