Top Six Most Used Photoshop Effects

As any photographer can appreciate Adobe Photoshop is an important piece of software which is used for enhancing and editing photographs. We have compiled a list of the top six most used Photoshop effects used for enhancing everyday family photos.

Depth of Field

1. Duplicate the background layer to preserve the original image by pressing command+J


2. Roughly select the area that you want to keep in focus.


3. Press Q to enter the quick mask mode. The area outside the selection is now coloured red.


4. Apply the Gaussian blur filer to soften the edges of the selection.


5. Exit quick mask mode by pressing Q again and then save the selection via select/save selection then deselect the selection completely.


6. Apply the lens blur filter, and adjust the opacity of the layer as needed.


7. Add a layer mask and with a black brush paint away any unwanted areas of blurring.

Soften Skin

1. Duplicate the background layer by pressing command+J


2. Change the blend mode of this new layer to overlay.


3. Apply the high pass filter to this level.


4. Go to image/adjustments/invert and lower the amount of opacity to desired level.


5. Add a layer mask and with a black brush paint out any areas you do not want to be softened such as details around the eyes, nose and mouth.

Removing Skin Blemishes

1. Add a new blank layer and call it spot healing.


2. Select the spot healing brush and tick the box sample all layers.


3. Select all the blemishes to remove, change the brush modes to either lighten or darken depending on the type of blemish.

Removing Wrinkles

1. Add a new blank layer and call it wrinkles.


2. Select the healing brush tool and change the sample mode to all layers and make sure aligned is unchecked.


3. Select an area of good texture then paint over the wrinkles.


4. Lower the opacity of the layer so that the wrinkles begin to show through again but not quite as much as they originally did.

Whitening Teeth

1. Select the area around the teeth with the lasso tool.


2. Select a hue/saturation layer and select yellow from the edit list. Drag the saturation layer all the way to the left to desaturate the yellow colour, now switch back to master in the edit list and bring the brightness up a bit.


3. Fill the hue/saturation layer completely with black, then paint over just the teeth with a white brush to bring the whitened effect back.


4. Lower the opacity of the brush and layer to get your desired result.

Soft Focus Lens

1. Duplicate the background layer to preserve the original picture with the shortcut command +J


2. Apply the Gaussian blur filter to this new layer, and then lower the opacity of the layer to get the desired outcome.


3. Add a layer mask.


4. Select the brush tool and lower it's opacity to around 25% and then paint black over the areas that you want to have more detail.

We hope you have found these tips useful and can begin using them to enhance your photo library.