Photo credits go to “zizzy0104″, from http://www.sxc.hu, The Leading Free Stock Photography Site.

Final Image Preview:

Hover over to view the after shot, click to see the full image!

Ready? Lets begin!

Step 1:

Make sure you have Adobe Photoshop! Though there are several great photo editing software out there, this tutorial will cover the steps through Photoshop.

Next, find an image you want to edit and open it in Photoshop! For this tutorial, I used a random image from SXC. You can download it for free here.

Step 2:

For viewing purposes later on, create a copy of your image by pressing “ctrl + j”. Name this new layer “original copy” and put it in a group, by pressing ‘ctrl + g’.

Step 3:

Once you have the new layer named and in a group, highlight it and click on “Layers > Adjustments > Levels” in the tabs at the top menu. From there, adjust the middle and right Input Levels as shown. Don’t make it too bright, just enough to darken some shadows in the next step. Click OK, then follow the next step.

Step 4:

Next, create 2 copies of the layer ‘original copy’, by pressing ‘ctrl + j’, and turn both layers into a black & white image by pressing ‘ctrl + alt + shift + b’. You may also make your layer black and white by clicking on “Layers > Adjustments > Black & White”.

After creating the new black and white layers, rename them ‘bw 1′ and ‘bw2′. Next, set both their blending modes to “overlay” with opacity set to 45%.

Step 5:

Select ‘bw1′ and go to “Layers > Adjustments > Brightness & Contrast”. Turn the ‘brightness’ tab to -150. Then, hit OK. Make sure the blending mode for this layer is set to ‘overlay’, with the opacity at 68%.

Step 6:

Because the female in this image is primarily darker the the rest of the shot, we’ll need to brighten her up a bit! Select ‘bw1′. By using the ‘erase’ tool, simply erase parts of her from this layer. The brush size should be at 70px at 100% opacity.

Step 7:

This last step may be up to your own preference. Select the ‘original copy’ layer, and make a new copy, sitting it on top of this layer. In the menu at the top, click on “Filters > Other > High Pass” and select the setting as shown (adjust this depending on the size, quality and sharpness of your image). For this shot, I used a radius of 3, and set the opacity to 43%.

Conclusion

And that’s it! Now you can go and show off to your friends how good you are at photo editing.

Hover over to view the after shot, click to see the full image!

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