How to: Painting with Light
Darker blacks, brighter highlights and richer colors
Why? To bring out highlights and shadows to brighten and pop the image.
Paint with a color to bring out the color.
download the action -created by Chip Springer
http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm
(this site has many cool actions to explore)
Chip’s action creates two layers, Use both layers to bring out this dynamic effect. Grab a SOFT white brush (2-15% opacity) to paint Light on the Color Dodge layer. Grab a SOFT black brush (2-15% opacity) to add shadows and bring out the drama with the Color Burn Shadow layer. You may need to use higher opacity brushes on some pictures. If using a Wacom tablet, you may also want to adjust flow control.
I have found 3-6% opacity works great for the brush. Build up the effect by brushing over the area multiple times.
Things to try
When starting an image, paint the entire image with the black brush at 10% on the white shadow layer. Next use the white brush to pop the black light layer.
After working a while, run the action again and build up the effect on a seperate set of layers.
Build the layers yourself
-Create an action
-Create a new layer (name: light)
-Fill with black
-Blend mode = Color Dodge
- Create a new layer (name: shadow)
- Fill with white
- Blend mode = Color Burn
