Saturday, April 17, 2010

CoffeeShop 101: Soft & Dreamy Texture and Color Tint Tutorial, Part 2


Here is part two of my Soft and Dreamy Texture and Color Tiny Tutorial.  I am using the free texture I used in Part 1.


Open your texture and your image in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.


Click on V (move) and click on your texture and drag and drop it on top of your image.  Ctrl-T to free transform it, and drag the bars until the texture covers the entire image.


Put the texture layer in screen blending mode.


Add a soft ivory solid color adjustment layer on top.


Put that layer in color blending mode and adjust the opacity to taste.This will mute your colors.



Now you can add the color tint layer. Add another Solid Color Fill layer with the color of choice and put it in color blending mode and adjust opacity to taste.  I used pink first, then tried out blue.  The great thing about Solid Color adjustment layers is you can simply double click on the little color box and make changes on the fly.


Now for a nifty little trick.  You might want to add an additional layer just above the background to adjust the contrast.  In the past I would say Ctrl-J and make a copy of the background and put that layer in screen blending mode (to lighten) or overlay/soft light (to bump contrast).  That extra copied layer makes your layered .psd file that much bigger. 

To keep the file size smaller, simply add a levels adjustment layer, making no adjustments to it, and put that layer in screen (in this case to lighten the image and make it more hazy) or in overlay/soft light (to slightly bump contrast).  Then adjust the layer opacity to taste.  Remember, you don't have to move any sliders, just add the levels layer and change the blending mode!


Here are the layers I added to get my before/after image of the bluebonnets. 

Now, if you want to save a bit of time I wrote a little action that will automatically add your layers and you can simply drag and drop your texture (add it just above the levels layer) and adjust the layers to taste.  You can download it HERE!

Speaking of bluebonnets, mine got trampled once again!  It was last Sunday.  The blue bonnets were past their peek surrounded by 3 foot tall weeds.  I decided that I could move my huge "No Trespassing PLEASE" sign and replace it with my tiny "No Trespassing, flowers are seeding" sign, because what idiot would put their kid in a jungle of weeds with a few faded bluebonnets.  Reasonable, right?

So the big sign was removed and we went out for breakfast and had a field trip to Lowe's (the boys love to "ride" the lawnmower tractors).  I had noticed at 7:30 that morning (we are up early Sundays because Imp likes to get up at 6:30) that the girl's softball teams were already playing.  On a side note, my kids will never be involved in any sport that I have to be somewhere at 7:30 in the morning on a rainy Sunday...

We came home and started some yard work. I went over the the bluebonnet patch to figure out where it was safe to start mowing.  And it was then that I noticed that a herd of "littering-possibly drunk because they had to be at the ballpark on a rainy Sunday morning-elephants" had visited once again... Yes, from one end to the other there were huge gaps of smashed bluebonnets.  Seriously, it looked like the entire ball park had come out on a field trip to CoffeeShop Bluebonnet Farms to have their photograph taken in the weedy snake and fire-ant pit.  Maybe next year I should set up a drink stand and sell some hotdogs...  ;-)

My husband swears it is a form of bluebonnet crop circles since we never saw anyone actually in the flowers.  Maybe...  But I am starting to suspect he paid the neighborhood kids to come and kill my bluebonnets so next year he won't have to mess with them.  ;-)

I also wanted to mention that in my quest to make some money without getting a real job :-) and still leaving plenty of time for my kids, husband, and this blog (my true passions!), I am doing some more blog designs at my CoffeeShop Designs site.  CoffeeShop Designs is Heather (my little sister) and my little part-time creative outlet and business venture (and one of the things that help me keep everything on this blog absolutely free!).   And please check out Heather's custom and premade logos  if you get a chance.  Heather is off camping this weekend with her family, lucky girl...  I love to camp. 

Want all of my favorite CoffeeShop Actions or Design Elements in one simple download 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.

12 comments:

  1. oooooo... thank you. color blending mode is not one i was familiar with so much and i was trying to figure this out.

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  2. awesome awesome actin.

    this is a keeper.
    thanks Rita

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  3. Thanks for this wonderful tutorial! this blog always amaze me :)

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  4. Thank for this lovely action. It tried it right away and easily changed the color in the action, as you suggest. This action is perfect for moody landscapes and dreamy compositions.

    And a POX on the stupid folks that would blatantly disregard a sign and stomp on flowers.

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  5. Just a quick note to let you know that a link to this post will be placed on CraftCrave today [18 Apr 02:00pm GMT]. Thanks, Maria

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  6. Awesome tutorial, Rita! I bought Flora Bella's textures a couple of weeks ago and I'm a texture addict now.

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  7. You can't keep your bluebonnets around long enough to seed and I have lettuce and chive growing in my lawn because I didn't catch mine before they went to seed last year.

    Thanks for the tutorials.

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  8. Thank you for the actions. They work really well. I am so happy with them.

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  9. Ok I dont want to sound too dumb, but are these elements only if you have purchased Photoshop? I do not have the actual program (it's quite expensive). But how do I do the effects that it offers without buying the actual program? I see that you have a lot of very helpful applications. I would like to use them. Thank you!

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  10. Thanks for your blog and all your great actions and tutorials. I've been sharing your URL with folks on photo forums. I also wrote a brief post to tell about this place on my photography tips and technique blog (Myfotoguy)

    Thanks so much, your work here is very helpful, and high quality!

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  11. Thanks for your blog and all your great actions and tutorials. I've been sharing your URL with folks on photo forums. I also wrote a brief post to tell about this place on my photography tips and technique blog (Myfotoguy)

    Thanks so much, your work here is very helpful, and high quality!

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  12. You're so sweet to take the time to share your tricks with us. Thank you sooo much! I have looked and looked for some simple explanations on how to do this, and yours was the BEST!

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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