Using the Diffuse Glow Function

I love taking ordinary objects, such as this couch below, and adding a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to make
you want to hang it on your wall.
I liked the composition of the photo and decided to play around with it a little using ‘diffuse glow’.

This was shot in Reynosa, Mexico in a little neighborhood nestled in between a landfill and a sewage facility.
First things first, I made a layer of the photo. You can read how to do that here.

After making a layer, I chose the ‘burn tool’, (the little hand on the left column of the page), to tone down the bright spots in the foreground of the picture.

The dirt, parts of the bike and the bright section on the right side of the couch have been burned in with a hardness of 37% using a 200 diameter burn circle.

Now, this is when I got crazy. I hate using the ‘diffuse’ function typically. It tends to make people look way too angelic. But, what the hey…I decided today was the day.
Under the ‘filter’ tab, go down to ‘distort’ and choose ‘diffuse glow’, and then click on it.

I chose a ‘graininess’ of 2, a ‘glow amount’ of 5, and a ‘clear amount’ of 13. I tried several different settings until I came to like these settings.

Rebekah likey. It made the couch really pop. But, remembering my photo teacher from the 9th grade, the brightest spot on the photo was leading my eye off of the photo and into the right bottom corner. Teacher no likey. Bad Rebekah.
So, what did I do?

I cropped that sucker is what I did. The grey bar along the bottom is what I am going to crop out by using the ‘crop tool’.

This is what the photo looks like cropped. And don’t worry, if you ever crop something and hate it, just use the undo function (on a mac hold the apple button and the ‘z’ button down at the same time.)
I still wasn’t happy with how bright the bottom of the photo was. So, back to the burn tool.

I burned in the bottom of the photo, and some of the highlighted sections of the bike.

And here’s the final photo. I think it turned out pretty swanky. Have you used the diffuse glow and liked it? Send me some examples, and I’ll post them!

Lighting Effects to Enhance a Photo

This picture was shot the summer we tore down the barn on the Greiman farm.(If you want to know more about that, check out Current Remodel.)
It makes me think heaven is peaking through the holes in the roof of the haymow.

I liked the shot, but it needed a little pizzazz, a little boost.
Presently, I am using Adobe Photoshop CS-the orginal version, since my computer crashed. I have to use what Hubby has on his computer. The program is pretty similar to the newer versions, but not totally up to date.

First things first when using Photoshop:
Always make a background copy of your image. Always. Do this before you do any adjusting and you will not harm your original picture.

You can make a copy by:
On the lower right hand side of the program, you will see a box with the tabs labeled ‘layer’, ‘channels’ and ‘paths’.
Under the tab ‘layer’, you will see your image as a tiny thumbnail labeled ‘background’ with an eyeball to the left of it and a padlock to the right of it.
Place your cursor on the tiny thumbnail and drag it down towards the bottom, landing it on the icon that looks like a tiny page with a dog-eared corner. This icon is labeled ‘create a new layer’ if you allow your cursor to just rest on it.

Now that we’ve made a copy, we can make our adjustments without hurting the original image forever.
Make sure there is a tiny paintbrush to the right of your background copy. The paintbrush means you are making adjustments to the copy and not the original.

Next, I used some lighting effects. The overall shot had a very even light, and I thought it would create some visual interest to vary the point of light a little bit.

Under ‘Filter’ in the top menu bar, highlight the word ‘Render’ and then move your cursor over to highlight and click on ‘Lighting Effects’.
I chose the ‘default’ style at the top. I then chose the ‘light type’ as ‘omni’ and increased the diameter of the circle until just the four corners were on the outside of the circle. Make sure the ‘light type’ box has been checked to be in the ‘on’ position. I moved the ‘intensity’ up to a level of 23.
Under ‘properties’ I left the ‘gloss’ at 0, moved the ‘material’ to a level of 69, the exposure to a level of 4, and the ambience to a level of 13.

Notice how the center of the picture is now lighter, leaving the corners a little darker?

I wanted to adjust the contrast a little to
make the details in the wood stand out.

Under ‘Image’ in the top menu bar, highlight the word ‘Adjustments’ and then move your cursor over to highlight and click on ‘Brightness and Contrast’.
I left the ‘brightness’ at a level of 0 (because it was already plenty bright), but adjusted the ‘contrast’ to +12.

The wood now pops a little more.

Next, I ‘sharpened’ the photo.

Under ‘Filter’ in the top menu bar, highlight the word ‘Sharpen’ and then move your cursor over to highlight and click on ‘Sharpen’.

The light beams are a little more focused now and the wood is more crisp looking.

Lastly, I increased the shadows and the highlights a tiny bit to bring out the depth of the photo.

Under ‘Image’ in the top menu bar, highlight the word ‘Adjustment’ and then move your cursor over to highlight and click on ‘Shadows and Highlights’.
I increased the ‘shadow’ to 15 and the ‘highlight’ to 12.

The dark parts of the photo are a little darker, the bright parts of the photo are a little brighter.

Above is the final version of my barn picture.
And below is the original so you can compare.