Lately, after the success of my previous Photoshop Tutorial “Fallen Angel’s Dream Fly“, I got an interesting email from a girl saying that she admires my art and style, but she wish the tutorials were actually a lot more simple, with less steps and complication, a quick an interesting photo effect that a newbie can do in under 10 minutes. When I thought about it, it actually makes sense because not everyone has access to a huge database of stock photos, not everyone has hours of free time to spend with computer (and Photoshop) and not everyone eventually can follow all the complex steps, so I decided that we will be making tutorials from now on for 1. complete newbies and 2. for advanced users. here is is one for newbies, you can do this effect in about 10 minutes and use your own photo! This is probably the simplest tutorial ever. You will learn to use channel mixer settings and turn a regular photo to a pop art.
What is actually a “pop art”? classical pop art stuff were made based on a photo, where the curves and the contrast were distort so much, so that the picture turned to just black and white (or other opposite colors), with very distorted curves. Classical pop art pictures, the first ones, came in green-red colors scheme, which is what we will do today, using nothing but red channel mixer.
So, getting started, take a picture…
Go to Image >> Adjustment >> Channel Mixer.
You will be working with red channel only, to get the green-red picture. Set the following settings:
Here is your result so far, negative-like picture, only in a different colors scheme then usual:
Next we are going to duplicate the layer and while the second layer is selected, go to Filter >> Blur >> Lens Blur. lens blur is somehow better than Gaussian blur as it looks more realistic when applied to the image, creating depth of field. Use the following settings:
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You know with this red I’m curious how it may look if you would apply blur on it. My guess it will be better overall…
Well, if the colors ain’t your style or type, then mix it up with other colors as well. The methodology and the technique on how it is done is simply awesome, nonetheless.
sorry but frankly speaking, the end result is horrible.
dont bother about the colors, but at the end your come up with wonderful effects. i like it a lot.
I think I went wrong on the step where im supposed to add a layer mask. I never did that before. I just used the rectangle marquee tool and drew a square around my pic and selected reveal all and painted over like you said. I also had no idea how to remove the blur.
I dont like the colors, but we can use the tutorial to use some other colors. The effect is cool.
Not sure about the colors, but I like the overall effect.
The colors are a bit harsh in this tut, but it’s hard to come up with an original combination, most color schemes have already been milled over on good-tutorials