Tuesday, April 30, 2013

CoffeeShop Express Eye Bright PSE/Photoshop Action!



If you are new to my blog, welcome!!! The CoffeeShop Blog is a one-woman-owned business (by me, Rita!) and I create all of the tutorials and freebies posted here. If you want to grab hundreds of my Photoshop/PSE actions (including exclusive sets not found here on my blog), Lightroom Presets, and professional digital designs (including all of my favorite holiday sets) in a single download AND support my site please check out my CoffeeShop Download Pack. I appreciate your support!!! Thanks to you The CoffeeShop Blog is possible. 

I have a personal goal of posting a free action here every week in May.  Today I was frantically working on the computer while Duke was doing his math downstairs and Imp was playing in my "office" with me.  

We went to the circus this weekend so he was doing some "circus tricks" to impress me.  He kept on saying "Mommy, look over here" and I would glance over, distracted, and say "Wow, that is neat" and go back to work.

After twenty minutes of this, Imp says to me, "Mommy, you don't like me".  I turned to him and asked him why he would say that.  He then goes on to say, "You never look at me and smile".  Oh boy, talk about Mommy Guilt.  Even though "never" to a small child is five minutes.  :-)  Needless to say I pulled him on my lap, cuddled him, and then read him his favorite book.  And then finished this post.  I might have Mommy Guilt but I also have to help pay our bills.  :-)
I have a huge pile of really amazing actions that I need to finalize and post, but I decided to release this practical one today.  CoffeeShop Express Eye Bright is perfect for a quick eye enhancement.  Simply click on the background layer (or the layer with the eyes you want to sharpen), run the action, and paint on the layer mask to sharpen and brighten the eyes.  If you want more control please check out CoffeeShop Eye Bright.


I am  using a beautiful image from Amy Mize Photography for this tutorial.  I ran my Dandelion Wine action on the image, and then clicked on the background and ran Express Eye Bright.


Zoom in on the eyes and use a soft white brush at 100% opacity to brush over the pupils and whites.  The eyes will look freaky, but don't worry.


Zoom out and adjust the opacity to taste.  Normally I would only use an opacity of 10-20%, but I added more effect in this tutorial so you could see the difference.  Please use this in moderation so you don't have crazy alien eyes in your photos!  :-)

Mouse over to see the before (does not work on phones).



Download the free CoffeeShop Express Eye Bright action. You can also download it here.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

CoffeeShop Romantic Designs!


Today I wanted to share some digital vintage design overlays.  I modified these from some design elements from The Graphics Fairy using this great tutorial.  I actually wrote an action to isolate design elements this way and I will post that later.

These designs are transparent white pngs, so you can drag and drop them on your images.


I used a few of them on this lovely wedding photo by Today Everlasting Photography (Facebook).

You can adjust the color by grouping a color adjustment layer over the design.

Hope you enjoy playing with these! Download the free CoffeeShop Romantic Designs.  You can also download them here.  Note: These are not actions!

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

CoffeeShop Glorious Light PSE/Photoshop Action!


If you enjoyed my post on the Glorious Light edit, but wanted to save some time by using an action, here it is!  The CoffeeShop Glorious Light action adds a wonderful warm glow to your image and you simply have to add the CoffeeShop Sunburst brush and adjust the layers to taste to get a beautiful edit.

A special thanks to Vanilla Sky Photography for donating this stunning image I used in this before/after.

NOTE:   Please refer to the  Glorious Light tutorial before using this action.  You must be able to use layer masks if you are running this action on a portrait.


These are the layers you will see after running this action.  Please refer to this tutorial for step-by-step instructions.

Use a soft low opacity white brush to add brightness to skin on the Brighten layer.  Adjust the Black to White gradient mask on the Dark to Light Gradient layer to add a dark to light gradient.  Use one of my Sunburst brushes in white on the Add Sunburst Brush layer.  Finally, mask out skin with a low opacity black brush on the Glorious Sun Tint layer.  Then adjust all of the layer opacities to taste.

Download the free CoffeeShop Glorious Light PSE/Photoshop action. You can also download it here.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

CoffeeShop Dandelion Wine PSE/Photoshop Action!



Today I wanted to post the CoffeeShop Dandelion Wine action.  This is a fun, bright action and you will find step-by-step instructions on doing the edit in this tutorial.  You have to be comfortable with painting on layer masks if you want to use this action on portraits.  If you are running this action on an image that does not include people you might be able to use it "as is" with no further adjustments.



As the action runs it will prompt you to Gaussian blur the image.  Keep this number low where your portrait is just slightly out-of-focus.  Once this action runs you will have six layers above the background.  Please read this post for complete instructions on editing these layers.

Basically, mask out the eyes with a soft low opacity black brush on the Color Bright and Contrast Pop layers to keep them from getting too soft. Use a soft low opacity black brush on the Color Pop and Color Tint layers to remove extra color from the skin.  Remove all of the Color Tint layer off the eyes.  Adjust all of the layer opacities to taste.

Use a soft low opacity white and black brush on the Light/Dark layer to add/remove light on your image (white adds light, black removes it).  Finally, turn on the optional Matte layer and adjust to taste.

Download the CoffeeShop Dandelion Wine PSE/Photoshop action.  You can also download it here.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Friday, April 19, 2013

{Friday Photo Bliss}





Each Friday I like to post one (or 2)  image that I took that week that makes me happy.  The second image was edited in LR4 using a LR4 Preset from the Rock-n-Roll collection.

If you do the same please link the photo in my comments!

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

CoffeeShop Dandelion Wine "Action-UnWrapped" PSE/Photoshop Tutorial!


I wanted to say my thoughts and prayers are with the people of West, Texas. It has been a heartbreaking week in the US.

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I am really excited to post my newest Photoshop tutorial; CoffeeShop Dandelion Wine (thanks for the name suggestion Amanda!).  This is a really fun enhancement and I love the final results.

The adorable image I used for this before/after is from Victoria Ford of Photography by Victoria Ford (Facebook Page).  She generously sent me a large version SOOC (straight out of camera) image for me to use for this tutorial.

This timeless image just makes me happy and when I read the name suggested by Amanda, "Dandelion Wine", I immediately knew that was the name for this edit.  Dandelion Wine is one of my favorite books of all time.

Today I am posting the step-by-step tutorial on how I created this effect.  I hope to post the action tomorrow.

CoffeeShop Dandelion Wine Action-UnWrapped Tutorial for PSE/Photoshop:



1. Open your flattened image and Ctrl-J to make two duplicates of your background.  This image is not my own but generously donated by Photography by Victoria Ford.


2.  Contrast Boost:  Click on the top layer (Layer 1 copy) and put it in Soft Light or Overlay blending mode for a contrast boost and Gaussian Blur the layer slightly to add a bit of softness.


3.  I usually start  the opacity of this layer at 40%.


4.  Click on the middle layer (Layer 1) and put this layer in Screen blending mode and Gaussian Blur slightly.  I usually start with an opacity of 40% on this layer too, and will make any final adjustments at the end of the edit.


5.  Add layer masks to both layers and use a black soft brush to remove softness/brightness/contrast from the image where needed. I usually mask out the eyes with a low opacity brush to make sure they are sharp.  I will add some "eye pop" later in this tutorial.

NOTE:  Click B for brush, D for default Black/White.  Click X to change the brush from black to white to black.  "[" makes the brush smaller, "]" makes the brush bigger.  Click on the number pad to change the opacity of the brush (1=10%, etc.).


6. Color Pop:  Add a Hue/Saturation layer on top and adjust the Master Saturation up to 30 or so.


7.  I always bring down the reds/magentas some (click on the RGB drop-down to find these selections), and in this case I made the Reds -18 and the Magentas -5.


8.  I use a soft low opacity black brush to mask off some of the color pop off the skin.


9.  Gradient Map Color Tint:  Photoshop has some fun pre-made Gradient Maps and I love the purple to orange one.  Add this Gradient Map adjustment layer on top of your image.  Freak out for a minute and then go to the next step.  ;-)


10.  I put this layer in Screen blending mode and adjusted the opacity down to 80%.


11.  I used a soft black low opacity brush to gently remove the color tint off skin and eyes.  I usually use 100% on the eyes and a few brushes with 20-40% off the skin.


12. Lighten/Darken Layer:  I like to add a dodge/burn layer and this technique is an oldie but a goodie.  Create a new layer on top and fill it with 50% gray.


13.  Put this layer in Soft Light blending mode.  Then use a soft white low opacity brush on the image to brighten areas (teeth, eye whites, under eyes, over cheekbones, highlight hair, etc.) and a soft black low opacity brush to darken (burn) areas (under chin, vignette, background, hair, pupils, lashes, etc.).

NOTE: I like to use keyboard shortcuts for this part of the edit since I find myself moving between a black and white brush.   Click B for brush, D for default Black/White.  Click X to change the brush from black to white to black.  "[" makes the brush smaller, "]" makes the brush bigger.  Click on number pad to change the opacity of the brush (1=10%, etc.).


14.  This is what my Dodge/Burn area looks like on this edit.  Often I will make a copy of the gray layer before I start using the brush and use one for the face and another for the background.  That way I can adjust the final opacity of each layer independently.  You can also slightly Gaussian blur this layer to soften the effect so you don't have harsh lines.


15.  If you want to add a "Matte" effect, use a Levels Adjustment Layer on top and move the black bottom output slider to the right and the black Shadows slider in to the right slightly.   This flattens the blacks.



Here is the final edit!  Mouse over (on computers) to see the before. I hope you enjoyed this editing tutorial and please come back for the free action.  I should be posting it by this weekend.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Preview of New Action and Tutorial. Need Name Suggestions!


UPDATE!  Thank you so much for the great name suggestions for this edit!  I picked Dandelion Wine (love the book, thanks for the idea Amanda!), but will be using some of your other suggestions on newer actions.

I have been experimenting with colors in Photoshop.  I have some beautiful new images from some of my readers and I have been having so much fun using them to create new editing techniques.  I am especially thrilled to have so many photos of girls since I am the only female in my family other than our dog and most of my images consist of blurry-due-to-running-away-from-mom, covered-in-dirt boys.

The beautiful image I used for this before/after is from Victoria Ford of Photography by Victoria Ford (Facebook Page).  She generously sent me a large version SOOC (straight out of camera) image for me to use for this tutorial.  This timeless image just makes me happy.

I wanted to do something "different for me" on this photo, and I am really happy with the result.  This was an easy edit, but I did use some layer masks to keep the skin tones from getting funky.  I love the colors and warmth of this edit and I hope you like it too.

So; I need a name for this effect and I was hoping you could help me out.  I am going to write a tutorial and also post a free action, but like always I am at a loss on what to call it.  The name does not have to have anything to do with coffee or food, but I would love for it to somewhat express the effect.

If you have any name ideas, please leave a comment!  Once I have the name I will start working on getting both the action and tutorial posted.  And as I mentioned earlier, I have a huge pile of almost completed actions and tutorials that are going to be coming out in the next weeks, so be sure to visit and send your friends!

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

CoffeeShop Add Clouds Tutorial!


Before I start my tutorial, I wanted to say my thoughts and prayers are with the people of Boston.

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Sometimes an image has blown-out or cloudless skies and you might want to add some clouds to make the sky more dramatic or to direct attention to something in the image.  Today I wanted to show you one way I add clouds to my images.

I used a beautiful image from Mellissa of Serendipity Photography - Facebook) for the screenshots on this edit.  Thank you so much Mellissa!

I think the light sky in my edit directs attention to the top of the image rather than to the model's face, so I want to add some subtle clouds.  Note: I should have also cloned out the little green bush on the top left of the image.  :-)

CoffeeShop Add Clouds Tutorial:



1.  I opened this beautiful image and ran the Coffee Peachy Glow action on it.  I did not flatten the image because I wanted the edit to also apply to the cloud texture.  I then opened one of the cloud textures in this pack.


2.  I grabbed the cloud texture (clicked V for the move tool) and dropped it on top of the girl.  I then dragged the cloud layer above the Vignette layer and below everything else so the peachy tint would be applied to the cloud layer.  If you are working with a flattened image, just drag the sky above the background.

I then dropped the opacity of the cloud layer where I could see the background show through.  I free-transformed the cloud texture (Ctrl-T) and dragged and fit it to place.  Play with the cloud placement to make sure the texture in the sky looks realistic.


3.  Next I needed to erase the extra cloud texture off the mountains and model's face.

I grabbed a soft black brush, added a layer mask to the cloud layer, clicked on the cloud layer's layer mask to select it, and then painted the clouds off the mountains and model on the image.  I usually do this very fast and end up removing too much cloud texture off the sky.


4.  I zoomed in and grabbed a white soft brush and gently painted back in any of the cloud texture I had removed with the black brush.


5.  I zoomed out and made sure the horizon did not look completely fake and did some last tweaks with the black and white soft brush on the layer mask.  You can switch from a white to black brush by pressing X (your background and foreground must be black and white, click D if needed).


6.  I want very subtle clouds for this image, so I put the cloud layer at opacity 45% in Normal mode.  You can also play with Multiply mode.


7.  Finally, I added some Gaussian Blur on the cloud layer just to soften them a bit.


Here is the finished edit.  I love how the clouds really help balance the image so I spend more time looking at her face and less time looking at the bright top of the image.  Make sure you keep this type of edit subtle or it can look very obvious and fake (unless you want a very dramatic sky).

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

CoffeeShop Peachy Glow PSE/Photoshop Action!


OK, I might have to check myself into action-writing rehab since I have been on an action-writing bender lately.  My creatively is either trickling/dried-up OR flooding; and right now I am getting overwhelmed with all of the partly-written actions I am working on for this blog.  Today I want to present a new favorite: CoffeeShop Peachy Glow.

This action is perfect for portraits if you want to add a subtle peachy glow to skin and brighten your image.  Like most of my actions this one is fully adjustable (I would suggest masking the color tint off eyes), and it even has an optional vignette.  This is an editing techniques that looks nice on most images.  Both of the images I used on this post had the action run on them with no adjustments at all other than erasing the color tint layers off their eyes.

If you are one of my readers who is working on a really old version of PSE (I actually had someone email me that one of my actions was not working on PSE2!), you should check out PSE11.  It is affordable AND the first version of PSE that allows you to load actions just like you do in Photoshop (easily).  No struggling to find that action folder and worrying about deleting the media database file.  Then you can load all of my favorite actions in one group if you want!

The beautiful image I have used for this before/after are not my own, but generously donated by JB Photography. Thank you so much for allowing me to play with your beautiful image.

Here is another before/after (I used a beautiful image from Mellissa of Serendipity Photography - Facebook).


I wanted to post another beautiful edit using Peachy Glow on an adorable image by Caryn Prouty.



Download the free CoffeeShop Peachy Glow action. You can also download it here.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Friday, April 12, 2013

{Friday Photo Bliss}



My guys...

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

CoffeeShop Glorious Light Photoshop/PSE Action UnWrapped!


Today I wanted to post a tutorial for an edit I call "Glorious Light".  I used a stunning SOOC image from Vanilla Tree Photography in this tutorial.  This tutorial is for more advanced PSE/Photoshop users that are comfortable with using layer masks.

I will also post an action this week that will do most of the steps for you (I love saving time), but today I wanted to show you the "action unwrapped" so you can see how to do this edit without an action (and can even follow along in GIMP).

CoffeeShop Glorious Light PSE/Photoshop Tutorial:


1. Open your image.  Like most "arty" effects, this edit will not work on every photo; it is best to have an image with great lighting and some open sky for the light.

Add a gradient map adjustment layer.  Double-click on the left stop and make it red (ec1919).


2.  Make the right stop yellow (f7e75f).  Take a minute to laugh at your image.  ;-)


3.  Put this layer in overlay or soft light blending mode and adjust the opacity.  Don't be too concerned about the color right now, I always adjust it at the end.  I also mask some of the color tint off the skin using the layer mask, but this can be done later.


4.  Now we will darken the image.  Add a levels adjustment layer and move the right Output Levels slider to the left until it reads somewhere in the range of 184 (bottom red circle).  Then move the shadows slider (on the left under the curve) a bit to the right to darken the shadows.  Keep this layer in Normal mode.  You can adjust the opacity later.



5.  Use a soft black brush in normal mode and low opacity (around 25%) and click on the Levels 1 layer mask and then on the image and paint over her face/arms.  Continue to paint over the image until her face starts to look like it is washed in sun.  If you add too much "light", simply paint back over the image with a white soft brush.


Then make a copy of this layer.  Keep it in Normal blending mode and adjust the opacity later.  I add this layer so that I can make a gradient of dark to light (lighter close to the sun, darker at the other end of the image).


6.  Grab your black to white gradient tool (G) and make sure the setting look like the ones I circled above in the screenshot.



7.  Click on the Levels 1 copy's layer mask to select it, and then drag the gradient tool from the lightest area to the darkest area on your image.  This will darken the area across from  the light you will add in the next step.  As you can see in the layer mask above, the layer mask has black where I want to mask the darkness.


I adjusted the opacity to 57%, but I will go back and play with it at the end of the edit.




8.  I jumped back to the Gradient Map layer on top and used a soft black brush to remove a bit more of the golden tones from her face and arms.  I erased most of it over her eyes.  Then I reduced the opacity of the Levels 1 layer to 50%.  I will play with all of these layers at the end for my final adjustments.


9. Time to add the sunburst brush!  I added a new blank layer just under the golden Gradient Map layer on top (so it will be tinted) and used Brush 1 from my free set of Sunburst Brushes.


10. I added the brush in white on the upper left of this image.


11. Then I free-transformed (Ctrl-T) it to taste.  Don't worry about making it bigger, loss of resolution is not a problem with these brushes.


12.  I reduced the opacity of the brush layer to 76%.


13.  Then I added some gaussian blur to the light layer to make it more subtle.  It is really up to you whether you want to see the individual light beams.  Sometimes I like them, sometimes I find them distracting.


14.  I added a layer mask to the light layer and used a soft black brush at low opacity on the layer mask to slightly remove the beams on her face (but left them on her hair).


15.  I want to add a texture.  I have an action that I wrote that adds the texture and allows you to "paint" the texture off the skin while keeping the color.  I will be releasing that in a few days.  It is an great little action and I use it every time I add textures to my images.  

I clicked to select the Background because I want to add the texture just over it.  However, you can add the texture anywhere under the top Gradient Map sun layer.  I always make sure it is under the Gradient Map sun layer because I want the texture to have my sun tint.


16. I used the Shadowhouse Creations Coffee 3 texture and desaturated it.  I don't want the texture color to affect my image in this edit.  I also removed the texture off her skin using layer masks.  When I release my new texture action I will show you exactly what I did here when I added the texture.


17. This is my final edit with all of the layers.

I added one more Levels adjustment layer under the other two so I could brighten the skin a bit more.  I made no adjustments on it and put the layer in screen blending mode to lighten the image, and then added a black layer mask to cover it up.  I then selected the layer mask and used a soft white low opacity brush on the face and arms to slightly lighten her skin and also brushed out parts of the image by the sun to make them more "sun kissed".

I spent some more time gently brushing off the Gradient Map color tint off the model's skin.  Make sure to use a soft black brush that is low opacity.  If you remove too much of the color tint her skin will look "off" in the edit.  If you take off too much, simply paint over her face with a white brush and start over again.

I also went back and played with the other layers' opacities and masks, and gaussian-blurred out the sunburst brush a bit more until I was completely satisfied with the edit (at least for the next hour).  ;-)

I am really happy how it turned out. Remember, this is not an edit that you simply copy and your image is perfect.  You will have to adjust it for every image.

I will be releasing an action (here it is!!!) to do everything on this edit (you will have to add the sunburst brush and adjust the layer opacities and masks), and will also be releasing my new texture action.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  And thanks again to Vanilla Tree Photography for donating her beautiful image for this edit and to Shadowhouse Creations for Jerry's wonderful free textures.

Mouse over the image below to see the after/below.




Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions 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.