Decorate photos with color and light effects

In general, the main purpose of post processing for photos is to fine-tune the tone and color balance to capture real-life scenes. But sometimes the photos can be further processed to enhance the surreal effects of the image. Increasing the contrast and light effect will make the picture look like the image on a magazine or billboard.

In this tutorial we will deal with the following picture. This picture is the real life scene, by adding some light effect, can make it more life. Open the diagram in PS and follow the steps below to process it.

First, create a level adjustment layer, adjust the shadow input levels, and darken the picture slightly. You can adjust the high light input levels at the same time to increase the contrast, but note that the high light can not be too heavy.

Next, create a gradient map layer that sets the gradient to dark blue (#020413) to bluish gray (#2b4a61) to light yellow (#fce9bb). In this way, all colors of the image are swapped to a value in this range.

Set the blending mode of the gradient map layer to overlay so that the gradient map layer can affect the hue of the original image, resulting in subtle levels of color. Reduces opacity to reduce the impact of contrast and gradient map layers.

Motorcycles are the main part of the picture, lighting the headlights to make them more life-breathing. Look for a suitable lens flare material and paste it into the file. Adjusts the color scale of the image to ensure that the background is all black, otherwise it becomes visible after the next step.

Set the blending mode of the Halo layer to filter, at which point the black area becomes transparent, and then the flash is scaled and placed on a small headlight to simulate the lighting effect. Set the opacity to adjust the brightness of the flare to add some detail.

Copy the Halo layer and paste it onto another small headlight. Press the Ctrl+t key to select the image to adjust to make it look more realistic.

Find a yellow flare material and paste it into the headlights. The footage I chose has a partial halo, which is selected and deleted.

Add a halo that represents the reflected light of the sunglasses lens.

Open any Halo image and scale it so that it can just cover the entire canvas. Sets the blending mode of the large Halo layer to soft light and reduces the opacity. These subtle palette and lighting effects make the photos look like magazines and rock and roll.

Add a color Fill adjustment layer and set the color to dark blue (#0c1329).

This is the adjustment before and after the contrast chart, is not the taste of rock and roll.