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I am going to show you how to create dreamy portrait effect to your photos.

Step 1: First open an image.

Step 2: Duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl+J (duplicated layer name 'Layer 1').
Select 'Layer 1' and go to Image> Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast and apply the following setting:

Step 3: Select the 'Layer 1' and go to Image> Adjustments> Color Balance or press Ctrl+B and use these settings:

Step 4: Now set your foreground and background color like below:



Then go to Filter> Distort> Diffuse Glow and use these settings:

Step 5: Go to Image> Adjustments> Levels or press Ctrl+L, make the portrait a little bit darker by playing with the levels. Apply these settings:

Step 6: Duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl+J (it's name 'Layer 1 copy').
Select 'Layer 1 copy' and go to Filter> Artistic> Poster Edges and use these settings:



Set the new duplicated layer blending mode to 'Soft Light'.

Step 7: Now duplicate the layer (it's name 'Layer 1 copy 2').
We need soft and brightness. So go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur and use these setting:



Set the 'Layer 1 copy 2' blending mode to 'Screen' and Opacity to '80%'.

Step 7: In the final step. Select 'Layer 1 copy 2' and go to Image> Adjustments> Color Balance and use these settings:

Here's the final result!

Here's a photo I have open in Photoshop. I want to convert this photo to black and white using the Black & White adjustment:

I want to use the adjustment layer version of the Black & White converter, so I'll click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Black & White from the list of adjustment layers that appears:

This brings up the Black and White dialog box. The main features in the dialog box are the six color sliders, each one controlling one of six primary colors in the image starting with Reds at the top followed in order by Yellows, Greens, Cyans, Blues, and finally Magentas at the bottom:

These sliders adjust how bright or dark each color will appear in the black and white version, and we can use them to emphasize or de-emphasize certain objects or areas in the image, brightening areas we want to bring attention to and darkening less important areas, based entirely on the original color of those areas. Dragging a slider towards the right will brighten areas that contained that color, while dragging a slider to the left will darken areas that contained the color. There's really nothing more to it than that!

Notice how, when you bring up the Black & White dialog box, each slider is already set to a certain value, with Reds set to 40%, Yellows set to 60%, and so on? These are the default values that Photoshop uses as a starting point for the black and white conversion. You'll also notice that as soon as you choose the Black & White adjustment from the Layers palette, Photoshop instantly converts your photo to black and white using those default settings. Here's my image as it appears so far with the default slider values:

The default settings for my black and white conversion are perfect! Or at least, they would be perfect if I wanted the man's shirt and the girl's dress to be the main focus of the image. Unfortunately, that's not really the result I'm going for, but that's okay because this is just a starting point. I can simply adjust the sliders to make whatever changes I need. To start with, I want the sky above the man's head to appear a little darker. Now, since I'm looking at the image already converted to black and white, I can't see what the original color of the sky was, but I know from memory and common sense that the sky was probably blue. So to darken the sky, I simply need to drag the Blues slider in the dialog box towards the left. The further I drag to the left, the darker the sky, as well as anything else in the image that contains blue, will appear. There's usually a lot of cyan in the sky as well, so I'll also drag the Cyans slider towards the left. There are no specific values to use here. It depends entirely on your image and the look you're trying to achieve, so as I drag the sliders, I'll keep an eye on my image in the document window to make sure I don't darken the sky too much. Making changes that are too drastic could also introduce banding, giving you ugly, harsh transitions between colors or brightness levels:

After dragging the Blues and Cyans sliders towards the left, the sky in the black and white version of my photo is now a little darker, which helps bring more attention to the main subjects in the foreground. To make it easier to see the changes, I've divided the photo into a "Before and After" view, with the default brightness of the sky on the right and the new, slightly darker version on the left:

Depending on the image you're working with, you may be able to get away with darkening the sky even more. In my case though, if I had tried to darken it any further, I would have ended up with the ugly banding problem I mentioned. Here's what the sky would have looked like. Notice all the harsh transitions between brightness values, especially where the trees and sky meet? That's banding. You definitely want to avoid it, so make sure you keep an eye on your image as you drag the sliders:

If you did go too far with a slider, you can undo the last change you made either by going up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choosing Undo or, for a faster way, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac). Of course, you can also simply drag the slider itself to undo the change.

Next, I want to make the skin tones in the image brighter. Again, since I'm looking at the black and white version, I can't see what the original colors in the photo were, but I know that skin tones always contain lots of red. So to make the man and the girl's skin lighter in my black and white version, I simply need to drag the Reds slider towards the right. The further I drag to the right, the lighter their skin, as well as anything else in the photo that contains red, will appear. Once again, there are no specific values to use since all photos are different, so I'll keep an eye on my image in the document window as I drag the slider to make sure I don't lighten their skin too much:

There's usually lots of yellow in skin tones as well, so you may find that you also need to drag the Yellows slider when adjusting how light or dark someone's skin appears. In my case, dragging the Reds slider alone did the trick. Here's my image after lightening the skin tones:

The man and the little girl are now clearly the main focus of the image, but they seem to stand out a little too much. They're too bright in front of the background. To fix that, I'll brighten the grass and the trees behind them to blend everything in more naturally. Now, so far we've been lucky. We knew that skies are usually a combination of blue and cyan, and we knew that skin tones contain lots of red, so when we wanted to darken the sky or lighten the skin, we knew which color sliders needed to be moved. But what if we don't know which sliders to move? What if we don't remember what the original colors in the image were? I want to brighten the grass and the trees, but let's pretend for a moment that I fell on my head and can't remember what color grass and trees are. There's a couple of things I can do, besides seek medical attention.

First, since I'm using the adjustment layer version of the Black & White converter, if I ever need to view the original colors of the photo, all I need to do is turn the adjustment layer off temporarily by clicking on its eyeball icon (the Layer Visibility icon) on the far left of the layer in the Layers palette:

With the adjustment layer turned off, the full color version of the photo appears once again in the document window:

I can easily see now that the grass and the trees were green (yes, I really did know that already, just work with me here), so to switch back to the black and white version, I'll click on the Layer Visibility icon once again to turn the Black & White adjustment layer back on:

At this point, since I know that I need to adjust the green colors in the image, I could simply drag the Greens slider towards the right to brighten the grass and trees. However, I'm not going to do that because there's an even easier way to do this. If you ever need to adjust the brightness of something in the photo and you don't know what the original colors were, simply click on the area in the photo and, while still holding down your mouse button, drag your mouse left or right! This has the exact same effect as dragging the color sliders in the dialog box but without having to actually drag the sliders or even know which slider to drag! As you drag your mouse to the left, the area you clicked on, as well as any other areas in the image that contain the same color, will appear darker. Drag to the right and you'll lighten the area, as well as any other areas with the same color.

I'm going to click on an area of the grass to the right of the girl, which selects the green color of the grass, and then I'll simply drag my mouse towards the right to brighten both the grass and the trees, since the trees are also the same color:

Notice how brightening the grass and trees also brightened the flowers in the bottom right corner of the photo. You may have noticed as well that the skin tones have become a bit lighter. Even though it doesn't seem obvious, there's actually more yellow than green in plants, so when I clicked on an area of the grass to brighten it, Photoshop selected both greens and yellows. Since the flowers in the original photo were yellow, brightening the grass also brightened the flowers. And since skin tones often contain yellow, as they do in this photo, they were also brightened when I brightened the grass.

To compensate for the extra lightening of the skin tones, I'll simply click on the Reds slider in the dialog box and drag it a little towards the left to bring the skin tones back down to where I want them. I'm also going to drag the Yellows slider a little to the left to darken the flowers ever so slightly:

And with that, I'm done! Here is my final black and white conversion that I was able to easily create and customize using the new Black & White adjustment:

Keeping An Eye On Things With The Histogram

Photoshop's Black & White converter gives us so much freedom with the sliders that it's easy to go too far when lightening or darkening different areas. We've already seen an example of how banding can become an issue, but a more common problem is that we'll lighten an area so much that it becomes pure white. When that happens, we lose all of the image detail in that part of the photo. Likewise, we can make an area so dark that it becomes pure black, and again we lose all of the image detail. To keep an eye on things as we're working with the Black & White adjustment to make sure we don't drag any sliders too far, it's a good idea to leave your Histogram palette open. You'll find the Histogram palette grouped in by default with the Navigator and Info palettes:

The histogram gives us an easy way to view the current tonal range of the image, with pure black on the far left, pure white on the far right, and all of the other brightness levels in between. It's the exact same histogram you may have seen in the Levels dialog box. The black graph that looks like a mountain shows us how much of our image falls within the various brightness values between black and white. What we want to avoid is seeing anything on either the far left or far right of the histogram. A spike on the far left means that we've darkened an area too much and it's become pure black. A spike on the far right means we've lightened an area too much and it's become pure white. The screenshots below show examples of the histogram displaying areas of pure black (left) and pure white (right):

Notice the small warning icon in the top right corner of the histogram? That means Photoshop is currently displaying cached image data and you're not seeing the most accurate results. To update the histogram, simply click directly on the warning icon:

Each time you make a change with a slider in the Black & White dialog box, or each time you click and drag directly inside the image, you'll want to update the histogram and check to make sure you don't see any spikes on the far left or right. If you do go too far, simply press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo the last change you made, then update the histogram again. Using the Histogram palette along with the Black & White adjustment is an easy way to make sure you get the best possible black and white results without losing any image detail.

And there we have it!

Have you ever found yourself zoomed in close to a specific area in a photo, maybe brightening someone's eyes or whitening their teeth, or you may have been panning around an image looking for minor skin blemishes or dust marks on an antique photo, and you're having trouble judging how effective your edits really are because you're too close to the image? Wouldn't it be great if you could see the entire photo as you're working no matter how zoomed in you are? Sure, you could always zoom in to make a few edits, zoom out to the 100% view size to judge the results, zoom back in to make a few more edits, zoom out, back and forth, on and on, but who wants to do that, especially when there's a much better and easier way! Just open the same image in a second document window!

Here's a photo I currently have open in Photoshop. I'm using Photoshop CS4 here but this tip works with any version:

Let's say I wanted to work on the woman's eyes, either lightening them or changing their color. I'll need to zoom in on her eyes, so I'll grab the Zoom Tool from the Tools palette and drag a rectangular selection around her eyes. When I release my mouse button, Photoshop zooms in on the area I selected:

The problem is, I'd still like to be able to see the rest of the photo as I'm working so I can get a better sense of how the changes I'm making are impacting the overall image. As I mentioned, I could zoom in and out as I'm working, but a much better solution would be to open a second view of the image in a separate document window. To do that, simply go up to the Window menu at the top of the screen and choose Arrange. You'll see an option called New Window for, followed by the name of the image you currently have open. In my case, the name of my image is "knitted_cap.jpg", so my option shows up as "New Window for knitted_cap.jpg":

This opens the exact same image in a second document window. If you're working in Photoshop CS4 as I am here, the default behavior of Photoshop CS4 is to open new windows as a series of tabbed documents. Go up to the new Application Bar at the top of the screen, click on the Arrange Documents icon, then click on the 2 Up two column document layout:

In Photoshop CS3 and earlier, choosing "Window > Arrange > New Window for (name of your image)" opens the image in a second floating document window. To place the document windows side by side each other, simply click on the tab area at the top of the document windows and drag them into position. Or, go up to the Window menu, choose Arrange, and then choose Tile Vertically:

Whichever version of Photoshop you're using, you should now see both document windows side by side showing the exact same image. The only difference is that both windows are set to a different zoom level:

Many people get tricked here into thinking that they've just opened a second copy of the image, but we actually have the exact same image appearing in both document windows. We've given ourselves two separate views of the same image, but it is the same image in both document windows. If you think of how your eyes work, each eye sees an object from a different angle but both eyes are seeing the same object. With our document windows, each one is showing us a different view of the image but it's the same image in both windows.

Since both windows are showing the same photo, anything you do in one of them will be instantly reflected in the other. As a quick example, I'll desaturate the image by going up to the Image menu, choosing Adjustments, and then choosing Desaturate:

This instantly removes all color from the image, leaving me with a black and white photo. Notice that regardless of which document window I had selected, both windows are showing the desaturated version, and that's because both are showing the exact same photo:

Just for fun, I'll grab Photoshop's History Brush from the Tools palette (I could also press the letter Y on my keyboard to select it with the shortcut):

The History Brush is like Photoshop's version of a time machine, allowing us to paint previous history states back in to the image. For example, I can restore the original color of the woman's cap by painting over it with the History Brush. I'll select the document window on the left (the zoomed in view) and begin painting over her cap with the brush. Even though I'm painting in the document window on the left, both document windows are showing the results of what I'm doing:

Hopefully you now have a sense of just how useful this dual view mode can be when editing images, and the nice thing is, it doesn't require an expensive dual monitor setup. Simply open the image in a second document window, do all of your editing work in the original window, zooming and panning as needed, and leave the second window set to either the Actual Pixels or Fit on Screen view modes, both of which can be accessed from the View menu at the top of the screen. Be sure to check out our full Zooming and Panning in Photoshop tutorial in our Photoshop Basics section for lots more information on how to navigate around images in Photoshop.

And there we have it!

Step 1: Duplicate The Background Layer

The first step in creating our action zoom effect is to duplicate the Background layer so we can work on a separate copy of the image, which will allow us to bring back some of the original image later. With our photo newly opened in Photoshop, if we look in the Layers panel, we can see that we currently have one layer, the Background layer, which is the layer than contains our photo:

To duplicate the Background layer, go up to the Layer menu in the Menu Bar at the top of the screen, choose New, and then choose Layer via Copy. Or, for a faster way to duplicate a layer in Photoshop, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac):

Either way you choose tells Photoshop to make a copy of the layer, and if we look again in the Layers panel, we can see that we now have two layers. The original Background layer is on the bottom, while a brand new layer named "Layer 1" sits above it. If we look at the preview thumbnails to the left of the layer names, we can see that both layers contain the same image, which means we can now do whatever we want to the image on "Layer 1" and the original photo will remain safe and unharmed on the Background layer below it:

Step 2: Apply The Radial Blur Filter

With "Layer 1" selected in the Layers panel (it should be highlighted in blue), go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Radial Blur:

This brings up Photoshop's Radial Blur dialog box. The Radial Blur filter gives us a choice of two different types of blurring - Spin and Zoom. Since we're creating a zoom effect, set the Blur Method option on the left side of the dialog box to Zoom. Directly below the Blur Method option is the Quality option. Choose Best for the quality.

We control how much blurring is applied to the image with the Amount option at the top of the dialog box. The higher the Amount value we select, the more blurring is applied. Drag the slider towards the right to increase the Amount value, or drag it towards the left to decrease it. Unfortunately, the Radial Blur filter doesn't give us a preview of the effect, so you'll probably need to try a few different values before you find the one that works best for your image. I'll explain how to do that in a moment. I'm going to set my Amount value to 50, but the value you end up choosing may be different.

Finally, use the Blur Center box on the right side of the Radial Blur dialog box to set the point where the blur will appear to be "zooming" out from. Simply click inside the box to set the point. Again, there's no way to preview the effect before running the filter so be prepared to try a few times before you get it right. I want my blur effect to appear to be coming from behind the girl's head, so I'm going to click above and to the right of center in the box to set my point.

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box. Depending on the speed of your computer, as well as the size and complexity of your image, you may need to wait a bit for Photoshop to finish applying the blur, so don't panic if it seems like nothing is happening. After waiting a few seconds for Photoshop to do its thing, here is my image with the zoom blur applied:

If you're not happy with your initial blur results and want to try again, first undo the filter by going up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choosing Undo Radial Blur. Or, for a faster way to undo the filter, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac):

Then, to quickly bring the Radial Filter dialog box back up, press Ctrl+Alt+F (Win) / Command+Option+F (Mac). Choose a different Amount value and/or set a different point for the zoom effect in the Blur Center box, then click OK to run the filter again. You can undo and redo the filter as many times as you need until you get the results you want.

Now that we've applied the zoom blur, let's bring back some of the initial image. We'll do that next!

Step 3: Add A Layer Mask

The problem with our blur effect is that it's covering up the entire image, which isn't really what we want. In my case, the blur effect is distorting the girl's face, so I want to hide the effect in that part of the image and allow the original photo to show through. We can do that easily using a layer mask. With "Layer 1" still selected, click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. It's the icon that looks like a rectangle with a round hole in the center of it:

Nothing will appear to happen in the document window, but a layer mask thumbnail appears to the right of the preview thumbnail for "Layer 1" in the Layers panel, letting us know that we've added our layer mask. If you look closely at the thumbnail, you'll see a white highlight border around it, which tells us that the layer mask, not the layer itself, is selected:

Step 4: Select The Gradient Tool

We're going to draw a black-to-white gradient on the layer mask to hide part of the blur effect and create a nice, smooth transition between the effect on "Layer 1" and the original image on the Background layer below it. To draw the gradient, we'll need Photoshop's Gradient Tool, so select it from the Tools panel. You can also select the Gradient Tool by pressing the letter G on your keyboard:

Step 5: Select The Black to White Gradient

With the Gradient Tool selected, right-click (Win) / Control-click (Mac) anywhere inside the document window to quickly bring up the Gradient Picker. Click on the Black to White gradient to select it. It's the third gradient from the left, top row:

Click anywhere outside of the Gradient Picker to close out of it when you're done.

Step 6: Select The Radial Gradient

By default, the Gradient Tool is set to draw a standard linear gradient, but we also have different styles to choose from, all of which can be selected from the Options Bar at the top of the screen. You'll see a row of five icons, each one representing a different shape for the gradient (Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected, and Diamond). Select Radial Gradient by clicking on its icon (second one from the left):

Step 7: Drag Out A Radial Gradient To Hide Part Of The Blur Effect

I want to allow the girl's face to show through the blurring effect, so with the Gradient Tool, the Black to White gradient and the Radial Gradient style selected, I'll click in the center of her face to set my starting point for the gradient. Then I'll simply drag my mouse towards the left until I'm just beyond her hair. The area in between the starting and end points of the gradient will become a smooth transition area between the blurring effect on "Layer 1" and the original image on the Background layer below it. Since I'm drawing a radial gradient, the gradient will extend 360° around my starting point (which means it doesn't really matter which direction you drag from the starting point), creating a circular shape with black in the center and gradually changing to white as it extends out in all directions:

Since we drew the gradient on the layer mask, not on the layer itself, we don't see the gradient in the document window. Instead, we see the results of the gradient on the layer mask. The girl's face is now visible through the blurring effect:

Even though we can't see the gradient in the document window, we can see it if we look at the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers panel. The black area represents the part of the layer that's now hidden from view. As the gradient becomes lighter towards the edges, more of the layer becomes visible. The white areas are where the layer is completely visible:

If you're not happy with your initial gradient, simply press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo the gradient, then try again.

Step 8: Lower The Opacity To Fine-Tune The Results

If you find that your blur effect is too strong, you can reduce its intensity by lowering the opacity of "Layer 1". Lowering the layer's opacity value will allow more of the original image on the Background layer below it to show through. You'll find the Opacity option in the top right of the Layers panel. Keep an eye on your document window as you adjust the opacity to judge the results. I'm going to lower mine down to around 70%:

And with that, we're done! Here, after fine-tuning my results with the Opacity option, is my final "action zoom effect" result:

And there we have it!