Friday, November 18, 2011

The "Lighting Effects" filter in Photoshop... you should give it a try

I shot this Monk in Bhutan a few years ago. There was not a lot of time to do anything but capture the moment. My vision was a bit different than what I got. Vincent Versace, in his books Welcome to Oz and Welcome to Oz 2.0, teaches a great way to express your vision using light in Photoshop. To that end he teaches the use of the Lighting Effects filter. It's got to be one of the best yet under used filters in Photoshop.
You get to the filter by opening your photo in 8 bit. Command or control + J to make a duplicate layer. Right click on the duplicate layer and click "convert to smart object". (Converting to a smart object allows you to go back into the filter interface and make changes.) Click "filter" > Render > Lighting Effects. The interface sucks but if you play around with the menus and sliders a little, you'll get the hang of it. You can also find additional information if you type Lighting Effects Filter into Google.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting - I must have missed this one. Thanks for posting it!

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