ADD IMPACT TO AN OVEREXPOSED PHOTO

How to transform a basic daylight photo into a fine art look in a few simple steps

Here, I will show you how to transform a basic daylight photo into a fine art dramatic look. It is pretty easy but you need to know your way around Photoshop a little bit. I broke down this technique into several steps so you can apply them to all your shots. What I advise you to do is to go back to your old photos – those which didn’t seem to have potential – and just apply this technique. You will be very surprised by the results and you will see that you just need to sharpen your eyes and technique to create spectacular images.

2 ERASE UNWANTED ELEMENTS #1 One effective way to remove big unwanted elements is to use the Pen Tool, select a clean pattern, click Command+J and move the texture over the part you want to cover up. 5 REPLACE THE SKY Let’s do this manually by dragging the sky onto the photo halfway, duplicating that sky by flipping it vertically, then merging the two layers in Multiply mode. We add some nice texture to the city this way.

7 VIGNETTING EFFECT To add drama, create a vignette. Duplicate the layer, select Multiple Blend Mode, take a rectangle marquee tool, make a selection, feather to 500 pixels and press delete. Lower the opacity to 38%.

6 DODGE AND BURN Selectively add some colour to certain areas, while using a brush to paint some black parts and bright parts. This will help with the odd effects of the erasing of tourists earlier.

3 ERASE UNWANTED ELEMENTS #2 A second way is to use the Pen Tool to protect one element and use the Stamp Tool inside the selection to cover up the texture. The Stamp Tool is not affecting outside the selection.

8 LAST TOUCH Open up the shadows to +69, lower the highlights -33, do the White Points again (+42) and lower the blacks to -6. You can brush back details with some Clarity and Texture (35) and change colours as you like.

4 ERASE UNWANTED ELEMENTS #3 Now you can create two curves, one named ‘Global Contrast’ and the other ‘Brightness’. That way you will be able to brighten or darken areas of your photos very easily. Now stop the Action.

1 BASIC RETOUCH First retouch in Camera Raw or Lightroom. Lower exposure (-0.25), boost contrast (+10), lower highlights (-100), open shadows (+35), set black points (-36), add Clarity (+30), add Temp (5381) and Tint (+11).

BEFORE AFTER