Lo-fi photography masterclass
Create tiny terrors
Step 1. Tilt-shift lenses offer unique depth-of-field capabilities, and can give real-world objects the appearance of models. In Photoshop Elements, it’s possible to replicate this with any photo. Choose a scene shot from a high angle, with some middle-ground detail. Select Layer, Duplicate Layer to create a new layer.
Step 2. Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and draw a sphere around the area of focus in the middle of the shot. Select Feather and choose 100 as the value to give the selection a rough edge. Choose Select, Inverse, then apply a Gaussian Blur from Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur. Set the radius value to 2 pixels.
Step 3. We’ve also increased the colour saturation. Invert the selection by choosing Select, Inverse, then choose Enhance, Adjust Color, ‘Adjust Hue/Saturation’. We chose a value of 50+. Finally, increase the contrast via Enhance, Adjust Color, ‘Adjust Color Curves’. We chose the standard Increase Contrast setting.
Priceless memories
Step 1. Photoshop Elements has a Vintage Photo filter, but we can also manually create the aged print look. Choose Enhance, Adjust Color, then increase the saturation and contrast from the Color Curves sub-menu. Select Filters, easy.Filter, Smart Curves to adjust the red, green and blue curves separately.
Step 2. Create a duplicate layer and add a vignette, with an opacity of 75 percent. Duplicate the layer again and, in the Hue/Saturation dialog, select the Colorize option. Drag the Hue slider to the left to apply a sepia tone, then adjust the layer opacity to 50 percent. We then added a low-opacity pink fill layer.
Step 3. Merge the existing layers, then add a new orange layer. Add an adjustment layer and select Gradient from the Layers panel. Select Foreground in the gradient colour box, change it to Transparent and drag the white slider to the left. Choose 0 as the gradient angle, and the blending mode to Color Dodge.
Comments
Alex Hosking said: This is missing the point