Now for some fun! There is a neat little technique to make your travel photos look like toy models and is called faking tilt-shift. I wrote two little actions that do it for you; CoffeeShop Teeny Tiny World and Teeny Tiny World-Custom. The first one puts a rectangular section on your image and you transform it to taste (that area will be in focus), along with adjusting the feathering. The Custom action does not make a selection, but has you paint in a layer mask to remove blur after the action has run. Both actions have Saturation and Contrast layers that you can adjust layer opacities and both actions also have layer masks on the blur layer so you can "paint" in sharpness with a soft low opacity black brush. Paint in the "main" area with a 100% opacity brush, and then lower the opacity and stroke above and below it so it gently feathers out.
Sure, this is a gimmick, but it is fun! In this zipped action folder you will find an action set for Photoshop CS and a seperate folder for Photoshop Element users. The PSE version uses Gaussian blur (which you can adjust as it runs) and the PS version uses Lens Blur. If you find the blur too much just use a soft black low opacity brush and paint over the layer mask.
I also wanted to mention that I forgot to tell you guys that you can use the CoffeeShop Golden Vintage action on B&W images also(see photo below). So don't be afraid to experiment with CoffeeShop actions!
So what is coming out next? More storyboard actions, a cross-processing action that will work in PS/PSE, and a really nice color action (more on that one later). I have so much WIPs (works-in-progress) on my hard drive that I need to get out here. I have been posting on my blog for over a year now and the well is much deeper than I ever imagined with no fear of it going dry!!!
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!
