TipClique Photoshop Tutorial - Home

This tutorial will show you how to add an angelic effect to an image. It makes the person in the photograph appear to be emanating light from within. It also adds sepia toning to the image, and the glow effect can be turned off for an interesting sepia toned effect. Photoshop CS2 was used in making this tutorial, but it may work in older versions.

Open the image to which you want to apply the effect.

Duplicate the image layer by selecting 'Layer > Duplicate' from the menu, and then set the duplicate layers blend mode to soft light. After the duplicate layer is created select 'Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur' from the menu, and set the radius to 25. The radius of 25 is for this image, other images may need a different radius.

Set the colors to the default black and white by pressing 'd' on the keyboard, then set the foreground color by clicking it in the tools palette, and setting the Hue, and Saturation to 50, and the Brightness to 25 then click OK. Select 'Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map' from the menu, and set the Mode to Lighten, then click OK in the next dialog that appears. You can set the blend mode to screen for a more extreme effect.

Make sure you foreground color is set to black, and then select the brush tool from the tools palette. Select a soft round brush, and set the opacity to around 30%, the Size used will vary based on the image, but for this image, I used a brush size of 45. With the brush set, paint over the areas you want to have a little extra color. I did this over the hair, and lips.

Select 'Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels' from the menu, and set the black input level to 30, the gray input level to 1.10, and the white input level to 245. If you are working with a different image the values will vary, you just want to keep the blacks looking black, and keep the image from looking faded out.

That will do it, you can also try turning off the blurred layer by clicking the eye next to that layer in the layers palette for an interesting sepia toned effect. You can adjust the tone at any time by double clicking the gradient map thumbnail, then clicking the gradient, then double clicking the first color on the left, and sliding the hue slider up or down to try out a different hue.