The leader in the tutorial poll.
Remaking my current userpic.
Tutorial for PS CS2, probably translatable
First, I take
THIS stock photo which I'm pretty sure I got from
Getty Images and cropped it like this.
I then sharpened it, thought it was a bit too sharp, and faded the sharpen by going Edit>Fade Sharpen at 70%. Then I used the Auto Levels and Auto Contrast (Image>Adjustments). Not that much of a difference, but it brightens it up.
Next, I take a texture by
tihana (found
here), pasted it in, and moved it around til I got
this and set it to Multiply 100%.
I pasted the same texture in again, moved it around til I got
this and set it to Soft Light 100% Fill Opacity 57%.
I wanted to bring back some contrast, so I went back to my base and duplicated the layer, dragged it to the top and set it to Soft Light 100%.
Thought it was a bit too red and dark, so I fixed that by making a new layer and filling it with #cfefff and setting it to Soft Light 100% (My favorite blend mode, can't you tell?)
However, I liked the reddish effect on the petals, so I made another layer and filled it with #efacd6 and set it to Colour Burn 100%
And just because I felt like it, a new layer filled with #fcf2c8 set to Multipy 100%.
Too dark again, but I'll fix that in a bit. I wanted to add something to it that sort of made it... "pop", so what better than "BLOBS OF DOOOOOM"?
I made a new layer, then used a bright pinkish-red colour (this case, #ff56a2, but go crazy, doesn't have to be pink at all) on a soft 100px brush in the corner, set to Screen 100%.
Wasn't quite what I was going for, so I made another new layer, and used the same brush, this time with #6bccf4 set to Screen 100%
Now to fix the dark problem I mentioned. Back to the base, duplicated, desaturated, dragged to the top and set to Soft Light 100%
And now it's a bit washed out, so new layer, #fcb4d4 set to Colour Burn 100%.
And it's done!
Though now looking at it I kinda like the blue dot with the opacity lowered like this:
DO NOT COPY EXACTLY.