Make a digital photo into an antique

Wacom Tips and Tricks Photoshop | The Aging Photo
After about 10 minutes in Photoshop using this tutorial and my own photo filter layer.

Circa 1993.

Bleach Bypass Effect in Photoshop

Thank you to PhotoshopGirl for providing the steps for this tutorial.  Her tutorial allows you to click and follow along in the corresponding buttons in Photoshop, which is a great way to learn!

If you're a Photoshop beginner, probably best to view her tutorial first (at the link above) so you can see each step visually in detail.

Before

After

1. Duplicate the Background layer
2. Change the blending mode of the new background layer copy to Multiply.
3. Create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and change the Saturation slider to about -45.
4. Create a new Levels adjustment layer, move the white slider left to about 200.
5. Create a new Curves adjustment layer and drag the middle of the line diagonally left to create an arc shape.

To see the effect that each layer creates, you can hide it by click on the Eye symbol next to each layer.  If you need to adjust some changes, simply click on the half darkened circle symbol in each layer to make adjustments. 

The final stylized image is high contrast, lower saturation, and has a more striking look in the highlights. Similar Photoshop effects are used in fashion ads, movie posters, and many more.  In the movies Minority Report and Three Kings, they achieved a similar, highly stylized effect by using a process called Bleach Bypass, where the color movie film is not bleached to remove the excess silver.  This creates a look that is much higher contrast and brighter in the highlights.

Read more about Bleach Bypass used in Hollywood:

American Cinematographer: Munich

American Cinematographer: 21 Grams 

American Cinematographer: Alexander

Simple, Natural Teeth Whitening in Photoshop

Lunacore Photoshop Training - Beautify a Face tutorial (part 4/7)
Their technique uses a hue/saturation adjustment layer with a mask of only the teeth (no gums, lips, etc.)  The mask is easily made by zooming in at 300-400% and using a brush with 0 hardness.
The final steps include making the teeth whitening appear natural by setting the adjustment layer opacity to 40%.  A layer opacity set much higher than this starts to look fake.

Using their steps took 10 minutes at the very most (the longest step is making the layer mask).  Once the layer mask is created, is only a matter of making minor adjustments to the

Make rounded corner images with Photoshop clipping masks

To make the Rotten Tomatoes icon and the 1x icon with rounded corners, I used the Clipping Mask feature in Photohop. (The rounded Flickr icon was from a Google image search.)

To clip an image layer to a shape, the shape layer must be placed just below the image layer.
Then select the photo layer, right click and choose "Create clipping mask." Done.

Before moving the clipped image layer, the image layer and clipping layer need to be linked together.

Read the Tutorial below:
Paislee Press: How to Use the Clipping Mask (in Photoshop)

Photoshop Tip: Lighten images before printing

Lots of printers, including color labs tend to print a bit darker than what we see on screen.
There's a quick and easy way to compensate for darker prints.
Printing as Costco, for example, seems to work best by brightening images 15-30% before printing.

When your final image is ready:

• Create a Curves adjustment layer, don't make any changes, just click 'Ok'.
• Set the layer blending mode to 'Screen'.
• Adjust the layer opacity as desired. The opacity amount represents the equivalent brightness in exposure. 25% = 1/4 stop, 50% = 1/2 stop, etc.
• Recommended opacity: 10-30%, depending on your image. Darker images may need a higher opacity percentage.

Note: Keep this new curves layer above all other layers, so the entire image is brightened evenly.

Photoshop Tip: Use curves on color images without shifts

When using curves adjustments on color images, the luminosity blending mode should be used to avoid color shifts. The image will still get the curves adjustment, but the colors will be preserved.

Photoshop Tip: Use invert to see sky dust and spots

Using an invert adjustment layer can help isolate dust and spots in skies and make them much easier to see when cloning them out.