Quick Photography Tips

Here’s a really quick way to give your photos a soft high contrast look in just a few simple steps. I’ve found it generally works well with photos that are mostly made up of light colors and whites like this one by emurray…

Add a Photo Filter adjustment layer setting the Filter to “Warming Filter (85)” and the density to 50% with Preserve Luminosity ticked. Note that you don’t have to stick to a preset filter - you can choose any color you like from the color picker in the Photo Filter dialogue box. Blue and browns can look nice but yellows and oranges will look more natural.

Set the Blend Mode of the Photo Filter adjustment layer to Overlay or Soft Light (pick your preference - Overlay applies the effect more strongly).

Our image now looks like this…

That’s already looking pretty good. Maybe a little orange. You can adjust the density setting and the opacity of the Photo Filter adjustment layer to get things looking right. I decided to tone down the density to 25%.

On some photos this effect will be looking pretty extreme at this point so add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and try reducing the Saturation to see if that gives you a result you’re happy with. I’ve set Saturation to -20 to give this result…

That’s all there is to it. Use it on the right photos and play with the various settings to get the look you’re after. As a bonus, here’s a before and after on a photo by Mr. Wright with the Warming Filter density set to 30% and saturation to -20…