By mastering these techniques, you can add an artistic touch to your photos and make them truly memorable. Whether you’re a professional photographer, graphic designer, or just someone looking to enhance their photo editing skills, learning how to create these photo effects in Photoshop can be a valuable asset.

Exploring the world of Photoshops and experimenting with different photo effects can be a lot of fun. With a bit of practice and creativity, you will soon be creating stunning results that are sure to impress.

So why not start learning to recreate these photo effects in Photoshop today? With dedication and a little time, you can become a master of photo editing in Photoshop in no time.

If you prefer a different application, we also have collections of tutorials for Lightroom, Procreate, and Figma.

The Top Photo Effect Photoshop Tutorials

Analog Effect in Photoshop

The analog photography effect mimics the look and feel of old film photographs. This aesthetic can be achieved by adding grain, light leaks, and desaturated colors in Photoshop. This tutorial takes you through the steps to re-create the effect, giving your photos a nostalgic charm and artistic touch.

Analog Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Black & White Conversion Effect in Photoshop

The black and white photography effect is a classic style that emphasizes contrast and texture, creating a timeless and elegant look. This Photoshop video tutorial will teach you how to create stunning black and white images in Photoshop.

Black & White Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Bokeh Effect in Photoshop

Bokeh is a photography technique that creates a blur in the background of a photo, emphasizing the subject and adding a dreamy, romantic feel. This Photoshop tutorial will guide you through the steps to add the bokeh effect to your photos.

Bokeh Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Cinematic Effect in Photoshop

The cinematic photography effect is a dramatic and moody style that mimics the look and feel of movie stills, with deep shadows, rich colors, and a cinematic aspect ratio. This tutorial will show you how to re-create the cinematic effect, giving your photos a professional and cinematic flair.

Cinematic Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Color Grading Effect in Photoshop

Color grading involves adjusting the colors in a photo to create a specific mood or atmosphere. Using Curves and Hue/Saturation adjustments, this Photoshop tutorial takes you through the steps of adding stunning color grading effects to your photos.

Color Grading Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Comic Effect in Photoshop

The comic effect is a fun and playful style that mimics the look and feel of comic book illustrations, with bold outlines, vibrant colors, and halftone patterns. This Photoshop video tutorial will teach you how to create stunning comic effects, giving your photos a creative and whimsical vibe.

Comic Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Cross-Processing Effect in Photoshop

Cross-Processing is a photography technique that involves developing film in the wrong chemicals to create unexpected and artistic color shifts. This Photoshop tutorial will take you through the steps to add cross-processing effects to your photos, giving them a retro feel.

Cross-Processing Photoshop Actions on Elements

Dispersion Effect in Photoshop

The Dispersion effect is a creative and dynamic style that creates the illusion of a shattered or fragmented subject, with particles or fragments dispersed across the photo. This effect can be achieved in Photoshop using various tools, such as the Liquify filter and layer masks. This tutorial will show you how.

Dispersion Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Double Exposure Effect in Photoshop

The Double Exposure effect blends two or more images together, creating a dreamy and surreal composition. Using layer masks and blend modes, this tutorial guides you through the process of creating stunning double exposure effects in Photoshop.

Double Exposure Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Duotone Effect in Photoshop

The Duotone effect is a creative technique that uses two contrasting colors to create a bold and striking final image. It is often created using gradient maps, curves, and color balance in Photoshop. This tutorial will show you how to add this unique effect to your photos.

Duotone Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Glitch Effect in Photoshop

The Glitch effect mimics the look of digital errors and glitches, creating a distorted and fragmented image. This Photoshop video tutorial will show you how to create fantastic glitch effects, allowing you to add an edgy vibe to your photos.

Glitch Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Grain Effect in Photoshop

The Grain effect is a timeless technique that adds a film-like texture and grain to digital images, creating a vintage and nostalgic look. This Photoshop tutorial will take you through the steps to re-create the effect in your photos.

Grain Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Grunge Effect in Photoshop

The Grunge effect is an edgy style that creates a raw and distressed look in photos, often with scratches, stains, and grungy textures. This effect can be easily achieved in Photoshop, using various techniques like brushes, textures, and blend modes.

Grunge Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

HDR Effect in Photoshop

The HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography effect is a popular technique that combines multiple exposures to create a more detailed and dynamic image. This tutorial guides you through the steps to create the HDR effect using Photoshop tools like merging and tone mapping.

HDR Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

High Contrast Effect in Photoshop

The High Contrast effect is a striking style that emphasizes the difference between dark and light areas in a photo. Photoshop can achieve this effect using various adjustments, such as levels and curves, and this tutorial will show you how.

High Contrast Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Infrared Effect in Photoshop

Infrared photography is a surreal style that creates a false-color effect in photos. Using channel swapping and color balance, this Photoshop tutorial guides you through the process of re-creating the effect.

Infrared Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Lens Flare Effect in Photoshop

The Lens Flare effect is a dynamic technique that adds a burst of light to an image, often simulating the look of the sun or other light sources. Learn how to add lens flares to your photos in this Photoshop tutorial, giving you a dramatic and cinematic touch.

Lens Flare Effect Photoshop Overlays on Elements

Light Leak Effect in Photoshop

The light leak effect simulates the look of light leaking into a camera, creating a dreamy and, at times, nostalgic look. This easy-to-follow Photoshop tutorial will show you how to add stunning light leaks to your photos.

Light Leak Effect Photoshop Overlays on Elements

Lomo Effect in Photoshop

The Lomo (Lomography) effect is a creative photography technique that mimics the look of photos taken with a Lomo camera, with bold colors, high contrast, and vignetting. This Photoshop tutorial will guide you through creating your own Lomo effects.

Lomo Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Motion Blur Effect in Photoshop

The Motion Blur effect is a popular technique used to convey motion and speed by blurring moving objects. This Photoshop video tutorial will show you how to create stunning motion blur effects in your photos, adding a sense of dynamism and energy.

Motion Blur Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Oil Painting Effect in Photoshop

The oil painting effect is an artistic photography style that mimics oil paintings by applying filters to a photo giving it a textured, brushstroke look and feel. This Photoshop video tutorial will show you how to do it yourself.

Oil Painting Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Posterize Effect in Photoshop

Posterize is a photography effect that reduces the number of colors in an image, creating a bold and simplified look to create a poster-like appearance. Learn how to create stunning posterize effects in this Photoshop tutorial.

Posterize Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Selective Color Effect in Photoshop

The selective color effect allows you to highlight or change the colors of specific parts of an image and convert the rest to black and white (or desaturated). This Photoshop video tutorial will show you how to create your own selective color effects.

Selective Color Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Sepia Tone Effect in Photoshop

The sepia tone effect is a photography technique that adds a warm and vintage look to digital images, giving them an aged, antique look. This Photoshop tutorial will take you through the steps to add sepia tones to your own shots.

Sepia Tone Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Sketch Effect in Photoshop

The Sketch effect is an artistic technique that mimics the look of a hand-drawn sketch, with lines, strokes, and shading. Following this sketch effect Photoshop tutorial, you can add a personal touch to your photos.

Sketch Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Solarize Effect in Photoshop

The Solarize effect converts the colors in a photo to create a high-contrast, surreal effect. This video tutorial will show you how to add this unique and bold effect to your photos.

Solarize Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Tilt-Shift Effect in Photoshop

The tilt-shift effect is a creative photography style that simulates the look of a miniature world by blurring parts of an image. This easy-to-follow Photoshop tutorial will show you how to add the effect to your photos.

Tilt-Shift Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Vintage & Retro Effects in Photoshop

Vintage and retro effects are a timeless photography style that adds a nostalgic and old-fashioned look to digital images. This Photoshop video tutorial will guide you through the steps so that you can add your own vintage and retro style to your photos.

Vintage & Retro Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Vignette Effect in Photoshop

The Vignette effect is a versatile technique that’s achieved by darkening the edges of a photo to draw attention to the center. This Photoshop tutorial will take you through the steps to create your own vignettes.

Vignette Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Watercolor Effect in Photoshop

The watercolor effect is an artistic technique that mimics the look and feel of watercolor paintings, with soft colors, blurred edges, and brush strokes. This Photoshop tutorial will guide you through creating your own watercolor effects.

Watercolor Effect Photoshop Actions on Elements

Learning New Photo Effects

Learning new effects in Photoshop is not only fun but can also be a valuable skill. By mastering the art of photo editing, you can offer your clients unique and visually stunning imagery that will set you apart from the competition.

By diving into these photo effect tutorials, you will, of course, learn valuable new skills, but you will undoubtedly unleash your creativity as well!

More Photoshop Tutorial Collections

The post 30 Tutorials for Creating Stunning Photo Effects in Photoshop appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Print designers often use duotones to save money on printing costs. Full-color images require four colors (CMYK) to make a print, twice the amount of a duotone. It’s more work to prepare four printing plates than two, so duotones are half as expensive.

This image would require four printing plates to print…

…but this image only needs two printing plates to reproduce.

In recent years web designers have started using duotones for aesthetic reasons. What was once something that was done out of necessity, is now done because it looks cool.

Sometimes you’ll get a project where you’re handed a mix of photographs, all taken under different conditions. If you used all of the photos together in full color, the differences in lighting, camera lenses, and photography style would be distracting. The design wouldn’t feel cohesive. But if all of the photos are treated in the same duotone colors, it can pull your design together. Like this, this, or this.

Finding the right images and color combinations is often more work than the technique itself. Not all images work great as duotones, and you’ll have to play around a bit to see what works. I’ve found that these kinds of photos work best:

• Simple
• Close up
• High Contrast
• Deep depth of field

How to Create a Duotone

Step 1:
In Photoshop go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map

Step 2:
Choose two colors for your gradient. Pick a dark color for the dark parts of your image and a light color for the light parts.

Step 3:
Sometimes tweaking the levels after you’ve chosen your colors can make the duotone pop more. Notice below how the image has more contrast after I adjusted the levels here:

That’s it! If you’d like to play with the above duotones, here is the .psd.

If you would like to reproduce this effect using CSS, check out this article: CSS Image Filter Toolbox.

The post How to Create Photoshop Duotones in Three Easy Steps appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

What is duotone? It’s essentially using two complementary colors to make up a pallete. Other color combinations and multicolored images may be present on a page, but the duotone pattern either dominates, or helps a user focus on a particular image. Duotone effects can be applied to a hero image, to whitespace, or to background imagery, including video.

A Cool Blending of Two Primary Colors

The duotone technique, as well as the name, comes from an era where the printing press was the prime provider of information. Duotone prints either consisted of two shades of one color, or black and one color.

In web design, most duotone effects are created by placing a brightly-colored overlay on top of an image, thus setting off darks and lights to create a stunning visual impact.

Dual Colors, and Shades of One

You can use duotone techniques in a number of ways. You can use duotone as a primary, full-screen element to emphasize a brand, for example. You can use it in whitespace for an interesting, non-intrusive background, or to accent other design elements or blocks of content.

This technique generally works best when used as a single design element, but it should be used in moderation. As you will notice, it can be overpowering.

Web Design & Dual-Toned Branding

Duotone is an old standby that has been given a new life. It has become a trend in web design. Although two complementary colors are often used, a single color used with black, or different shades of the same color will often present you with a more beautiful and powerful effect. A vintage sepia print would be a good comparison.

It took the creative community some time to accept the duotone technique – mainly out of the fear of upsetting the harmony of their overall design schemes. Today, many of these same creatives have come to embrace duotone techniques, having realized the beauty and power of bright colors and hues and the subtle use of shades.

Black and Red, Red and Black – and Green

Duotone’s use is a proven attention-grabber, and as such, it can lend a strong amount of visual appeal to your homepage. It draws users in, as opposed to disappointing them before they can feel the full, positive effect of your site’s UX.

The use of duotone is also an ideal method of setting your website apart from those of your competitors. It can give you a unique identity that your visitors will find appealing.

Work to achieve the right balance between the colors you select, and the structure (and intent) of your design. Websites built around traditional grid interfaces can benefit from the use of dark tones and hues. Light hues can also serve as attention-getters, especially on websites featuring layered designs. You have plenty of options available to you, and what you see here should provide you with more than a few ideas to work with.

Why You Should Use it

Making Maximum Use of Duo Colors

Two things worth noting about the below Swedish sports team’s website: Number one; how a duotone background can increase readability. This is achieved by overlaying a duotone color, so as to flatten background color variations, and causing the text to stand out – no matter where it may be placed on the image. Number two; notice how the team logo’s colors are carried throughout the website to reinforce the brand.

The Relaxing Effect of a Duo-Tone Background

It has already been noted how a subtle duotone effect can be used to emphasize a brand. It can also be used as a method of giving your website a new, fresh look, without having to resort to a complete overhaul.

With minimal effort, you can transform your already awesome website into an ever awesomer website. Picture a gray background image, and then see how changing it to a cool blue color makes the text stand out even more, while at the same time providing a cool, relaxing atmosphere.

A Powerful Effect of Bright Over Muted

This website imagery from below may be a bit too striking for some of the more conservative web designers, but it does tend to attract users. Don’t be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone when experimenting with duotone techniques. Colors don’t always have to match, and you can always make changes, or take advantage of A/B testing to see what works and what might not.

From the Subtle & Conservative to the Wild & Wonderful

Quite a number of web designers have taken up the duotone trend, and others are joining the parade. More than a few of these designers have tried color contrasts and schemes that are, to say the least, uncommon and not particularly popular – and they have hit the jackpot in attracting users.

Conclusion

What you have seen here are examples where duotone techniques appear to fit in quite naturally with a website’s theme and other examples where the use of duotone might be better described as “cutting-edge”, or even risky. Using this technique can indeed be risky, and it is definitely challenging; but when done right, your users receive the benefit of a better experience.

You can use duotone to impart a sense of the dramatic, to give your website a more understated, serene look, to highlight content, or simply to liven it up. It’s up to you, and it’s definitely worth trying.

The post Inspirational Examples of Dual-Toned Color Schemes in Web Design appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.