››DOWN AND DIRTY TRICKS› ›kelbyone.com031©Adobe Stock/Leonid Tit©Adobe Stock/ysbrandcosijnStep One: For this design, we need a background image of a
snowy wilderness scene. Here, we have a nice shot from Adobe
Stock that will work, but we need to make some changes first.
[KelbyOne members may download the files used in this tuto-
rial at http://kelbyone.com/magazine. All files are for personal
use only. If you’re looking for downloads for a past issue, just
hover your cursor over the circles below “View Previous Issues”
to see the month and year of the various issues.]
Step Two: Remove the color from the scene by pressing Shift-
Command-U (PC: Shift-Ctrl-U). Open Levels by pressing Com-
mand-L (PC: Ctrl-L), grab the midtone slider below the histogram,
and push it to the left to around the 3.5 mark. This will greatly
lessen the contrast of the image. Then, go to Output Levels just
below and push the shadow slider to around the 39 mark. Click
OK when done.
Step Three: Select the Gradient tool (G) in the Toolbox. In the
Options Bar, click on the preview strip, choose the Foreground
to Transparent preset, and click OK to close the Gradient Editor.
Also in the Options Bar, make sure the Linear Gradient icon is
selected, and set the Mode to Overlay. Press D then X to set
white as the Foreground color. Now drag gradients from each
of the four sides about a quarter of the way into the image to
create a white fade all the way around the image. Do this directly
to the Background layer.
Step Four: Now create a new document (File>New) that’s
1000x700 pixels. Using the Move tool (V) and holding the Shift
key, click-and-drag the wilderness scene into this new document
(the Shift key will center it in the document). Press Command-T
(PC: Ctrl-T) to enter Free Transform, hold Shift-Option (PC: Shift-
Alt) and drag a corner point to scale the scene to fit in the new
image window (Shift will constrain the proportions, and Option
[PC: Alt] will transform it from the center). Press Enter to commit
the transformation.
Step Five: Now open the main subject image, which is also part
of the exercise download. This is a gunfighter image shot on a
neutral background. We need, of course, to extract him from
the background, but first we’re going to do some HDR Toning
effects. Go to the Image menu, hold down the Option (PC: Alt)
key, and choose Duplicate. The Option (PC: Alt) key will bypass
the Duplicate Image dialog.
Step Six: In this duplicate image, go to Image>Adjustments>HDR
Toning. Set the Saturation setting at the bottom to –55%. Then,
up in the Tone and Detail section, set the Detail way up to around
140%. Drop the Exposure to about –0.50. Lastly, go to the Edge
Glow section and set the Radius to 67 px and the Strength to
about 1.08. Leave Smooth Edges unchecked and click OK.
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