9 More blending
Choosing a Blend Mode for this layer is a matter of
experimentation, because different images look better or worse
with different modes. We settled on Soft Light for ours, enjoying
the blue colour that came through. Luminosity gave a similar
result, although it began to soften the image too much, while
Vivid Light imposed thick black bars over the image.
7
Shear
Sticking with Layer 0, you can add a creepy effect using
Filter > Distort > Shear. There’s no preview except the thumbnail
provided on its window, and it’s easy to go much too far. Drag the
line on the graph into a shallow S shape, and tick the box that
says Repeat Edge Pixels. When you hit OK, the sections that have
had the filter applied will appear to be at a slightly different angle.
5
Darken
The layer left at the top of the stack should now be one you
made in step 4. Unhide it, select it, and choose Enhance > Adjust
Lighting > Levels. Drag the central triangle of the Levels window
to the right to darken the image. When you’re happy, hit OK. Now
change its Blend Mode using the dropdown at the top of the
Layers palette to Linear Burn, and bring the Opacity down to 50%.
10 Saveandfinish
Makesureyou’vesavedyourcompositionasa PSDfile,as
thiswillpreservethelayerstocontinueeditinglaterif youwant.
Toexportit asanimagefilethatcanbepostedonline,headtothe
FilemenuandchooseSaveAs,thenchooseeithera PNGorJPEG
file.If filesizeis anissue,considerusingSaveforWeb,whichoffers
previewsofvariouscompressionlevelsandfileformats.Q8
Gradient
Createa newlayerandplaceit atthetopofthestack.
ChoosetheGradienttool,andclickthesamplegradientinthe
ToolOptions.Thisopensupa panelfromwhichyoucanchoose
ready-madegradients.Wewanta mixofcolourandtransparent,
suchasSoftStripesintheSpecialEffectsgroup.HitOK,anddrag
thegradienttoolfromlefttorightacrossyourimage.6 Unhide the background
Unhide the original Background layer using the eye icon,
and it will fill in the gaps in your composition. Background layers
are fixed, so to turn it into a normal floating layer double click it,
and give it a name (ours is Layer 0). Drag the plain black layer
below it, reselect Layer 0, and play with the Blend Mode to see
what looks good – Difference and Luminosity, for example.Images: Laurentiu Robu/Ian Evenden26 |^ |^ August 2019