Monday, July 13, 2009

CoffeeShop Splendor B&W PS/PSE Action and Tutorial!


I am always looking for different ways to do B&W, and I have seen this type of enhancement around Flickr and love it, so of course I had to figure out how to do it on my own. I really love how the skin glows and the dark areas have a hint of purple. This action has several layers which can all be adjusted (play around with blending modes and opacity). Sometimes the Contrast Boost layer will blow out highlights, so I added a layer mask to that layer. Just use a soft low opacity black brush (5-10%) and paint over blown out skin or other areas you want to slightly darken. Download the free action at the bottom of this post.

For those of you who like to take apart actions, here is the CoffeeShop Splendor UnMasked Tutorial!

1. Contrast Boost Layer: Add a levels adjustment layer and adjust the contrast. I usually bring up the highlight and midtones a bit and make the shadows a little darker. The action applies a slight S curve adjustment to a copied background layer, but PSE does not have the same type of curves so just use levels if you have that program.

2. Purple Tint Layer: Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer. With it set to "Master" and colorize checked, set the Hue to 282 and the Saturation to 5.

3. Brownish Tint Layer: Add a Photo Filter adjustment layer. Click on "Color" and enter the hex# ac9133 on the bottom. Adjust "Density" to 50% and make sure "Preserve Luminosity" is checked. This will be a gross looking brown, but don't worry!

4. B&W Layer: Click on your Contrast Boost Layer just above your Background, and add a black to white Gradient Map Adjustment Layer. This adds additional contrast and pop (and if you did not have the other two color layers it would turn your image B&W).

5. Vignette Layer: (Check out the CoffeeShop Burn Action and Tutorial for more details!). Click on your Brownish Tint Layer. Add a Black to fade Gradient layer (not Gradient Map layer, make sure your foreground is set to Black and your background is set to white before adding this). Change the setting to Radial, the Scale to 150%, and click on Reverse. Then click on the gradient map and set the white slider on the gradient (on the right) to the middle where Location says 50 or less. The smaller you make the setting, the smaller the vignette. Press OK. You can set the vignette to multiply, overlay, soft light or vivid light blending mode and adjust the opacity to taste. Or turn it off if you would rather not have burned edges.

That is it! Hope you had fun learning how to make your own Splendor B&W image!

Download the free CoffeeShop Splendor B&W PS/PSE Action 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!

19 comments:

  1. Rita, this is absolutely STUNNING....a big thank you again!

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  2. Awesome as always Rita!!! Can't wait to play with this one.

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  3. Thank you! Your blog post will be advertised on the DigiFree Digital Scrapbooking Freebie search engine today (look for timestamp: 13 Jul [LA 07:00pm, NY 09:00pm] - 14 Jul [UK 02:00am, OZ 12:00pm] ).

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  4. Thank you so much, I can't wait to give it a try!!!

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  5. Gorgeous!

    Thank you!
    I am having a blast checking out everyone's creative images using your actions on Flickr! So fun :)

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  6. Thanks for another great action and tutorial!

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  7. Thank you SO much for taking this action apart. I can't seem to install actions in PSE7 (Vista); the trail peters out before I get to the end... so it's much very appreciated to know how to get the result on my own.
    Cheers!

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  8. Love Love Love it!!! I used it a bunch last night on a maternity shoot I did!!

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  9. thanks! this is very nice! had also your vintage action, guess what, on my first try - made it on explore!!!! cheers!

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  10. Oh my goodness--I LOVE this. You have so many great actions, but this is definitely a favorite! Thank you!

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  11. Thank you! I love your work. You are awesome at what you do!

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  12. I just found your blog and I am in love with it: I am wondering if you would be willing to write an action like this for all the colors - red, yellow, green, orange, purple, pink etc - It sure does make the color on b&w easy!

    Thank you for sharing.

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  13. Thank you so very much! I've just started editing and suddenly understand so much more

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  14. Thank you so much...i love your actions...I'm brazilian...thank you.

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  15. Rita, I love all of your actions! The Splendor B&W action is one of my favorites. Thank you so much for all of the great freebies!

    I hope that you don't mind, but I posted a link to this action on my blog. I know that my readers will love it as much as I do!

    Thanks again!

    Mary
    Digital Scrapbooking - for the fun of it!

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  16. This is one of my favorite black and white actions. Thanks Rita!

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  17. This looks amazing. Thank you so much for sharing.

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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