Photo effects never get old. If you're looking for cool Photoshop photo effect tutorials to spice up your image collection, this roundup was put together for you. There are 40 fantastic tutorials to help you to become a true Photoshop rockstar!
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Here you'll find popular tilt-shift techniques, watercolor effects, Instagram effects, Polaroid and vintage effects and many, many more. Don't hesitate to choose the image effect you like the best and follow it through to create truly stunning art.
1. How to Instagram Your Images Using Photoshop
Learn how to create a 'Nashville' filter from Instagram in a few easy steps.
2. How To Give Your Photos a Vintage Polaroid Effect
This easy step-by-step guide will show you how to add an old vintage Polaroid style to your ordinary photos using Photoshop. Adjusting image colors and applying Photoshop brushes will convert an image to an old one in no time.
3. How to Create Cool Watercolor Effects in Photoshop
Lots of famous designers such as Bruno Fujii, Margot Mace, Raphaël of My Dead Pony, Stina Person, use watercolor effect in their illustrations and it looks fantastic. These days you don't need watercolor paint to add this awesome effect to your image, Photoshop will help you to perform this task.
4. How to Create Instagram Filters in Photoshop
Instagram rocks, am I right? One more great tutorial on creating an Instagram filter.
View the Tutorial →
5. How to Instagram Photos Quickly in Photoshop
You will be surprised how short and simple this tutorial is. It is so quick that you'll learn how to add a vintage effect to your image in only three steps.
6. How to Add Quick Effects to Your Personal Photos
This is a beginners-to-intermediate tutorial to add a cool bokeh effect to you personal images.
7. How To Create a Movie Style Photo Effect in Photoshop
Everybody likes photo effects that are super easy to recreate. This tutorial will teach you to add a cool cinematic movie effect.
8. How to Create a Trendy Retro Photo Effect
Three really easy steps to show you how to create a retro effect. If these three steps still sound like too much effort, you can download the Photoshop action to add a retro effect to your picture with just a click.
9. How to Create a Super Cool Watercolor Effect in 10 Steps
This tutorial has ten easy steps to make a watercolor painting inspired by illustrator Scott Hansen, using Masks and Watercolor Bushes to recreate the stunning image.
10. How to Create the Tilt-Shift Effect in Photoshop
This tutorial will walk you through creation of a Tift-Shift picture.
11. How to Add Depth of Field to Your Photos
There is a Lens Blur Filter in Photoshop, it allows you to control the depth. Also, you can choose a place on the picture, where it will be applied. Still don't know how it works? Take a look at this tutorial.
12. How to Create a Realistic Broken Glass Effect
This is an easy and quick tutorial on how to apply a realistic broken glass effect to a background image using Photoshop brushes.
13. How to Add the HDR Effect to Your Photos
In this tutorial you'll find instructions on how to create an awesome HDR photo effect. The main goal of this lesson is to blend multiple exposures of the same scene into a single image in order to create more dynamic range than your camera is capable of.
14. How to Create Light Leaks & Lomo Effects Using Actions
In this quick tutorial you'll learn how to create lomo effects and light leaks for your photos. There is also a brief video lesson on how to install and to run actions.
15. How to Design Vintage Artwork with Old Newspaper & Watercolor Brushes
This is a step-by-step tutorial on how to design a stunning watercolor vintage artwork with an old newspaper background.
16. The Creation of 'The Storm is Approaching' Artwork
17. How To Give Your Photos a Dark Processed Lomo Effect
Follow this simple guide for creating a cool dark lomo style effect with high contrasts, blue shadows and vignette burns.
18. Photographic Toning Retouch Method
This is a cool photo retouch method for making your personal photos super cool.
19. How To Give Your Photos a Cool Retro Analog Effect
Light leaks, color washes, blurs and vingetting are all common problems when processing a film. While these issues don't affect digital cameras that much, with this tutorial you will be shown how to recreate these awesome effects.
20. How to Give Your Photos a Vintage Photo Effect
Vintage is all the fashion today. So, this guide will help you to create stunning vintage style pictures using Photoshop.
Photoshop Action Download →
21. How to Create Hipstamatic & Instagram Style Effects With Photoshop
Sometimes video tutorials are better for understanding than the usual tuts with screenshots. A cool lesson to create some Instagram effects.
22. How to Apply a Color Effect to a Photo
Applying a color effect can totally change your image. This quick guide will show you how to add a nice cozy effect to your picture.
23. How to Enhance Detail Using Correction
Want to add an HDR-style detailed effect to your image? This tutorial will show you how.
24. How to Simulate Film Grain in an Image with Photoshop
In this quick Photoshop tutorial you'll learn how to mimic film grain.
25. How to Convert Your Portrait Photo to Color Sketch in Photoshop
This step by step guide will show you how to convert a portrait photo into a pencil sketch. A typical sketch is normally black and white, but with this tutorial you'll learn how to colorize the sketch with the photo's original colors.
26. How to Recreate the Instagram Nashville Effect
With the help of this awesome tutorial you can recreate Instagram Nashville Effect. You will use different color correction adjustment layers to achieve this style.
27. How to Create the Dead Zone Blur Streaks Effect With Photoshop
In this Photoshop tutorial you'll find out how to create an amazing motion blur-type of effect. In order to achieve it you need to colorize a photo, than select a single column of pixels and stretch it across the image to make streaks of colors.
28. How to Add a Non-Destructive Lens Flare Effect to Your Photos in Photoshop
Without making any permanent changes, with this tut, you can add a popular lens flare effect to your image.
29. How to Colorize Images with Gradients in Photoshop
In this tutorial you'll learn how to colorize the image using custom gradients. The author of this tutorial will take you through Gradient Map image adjustments. Also, this lesson will tell you how to apply different colors to different brightness levels of an image.
30. How to Create a Dreamy Photo Effect
In this tutorial you'll get to know how to add a magic dreamy effect to your image. Adding bokeh, flecks of sunlight and filters will turn your photo into a real masterpiece.
31. How to Create a Vintage Toy Camera Look
This video tutorial will show you how to turn your photo into a vintage styled image.
32. How to Give a Yellow Lamborghini a Paint Job
33. How to Use Photoshop to Turn Day into Dusk
Taking photos at night is not a simple task. Therefore, sometimes it's easier to convert a daylight photo into a night one with Photoshop.
34. How to Add Partial Color Effects to Your Photos
Learn to transform a color image into black and white, then reveal the parts of an image with the help of Layer Masks.
35. How to Create the 'Toaster' Instagram Effect
This is one more incredible tutorial on how to create the 'Toaster' Instagram effect.
36. How to Create a Simple Lomo Photo Effect
In this article you'll find a detailed explanation on how to use actions. Photoshop Actions are a very handy tool that can save your time and efforts.
37. How to Turn an Ordinary Photo into an Oil Painting
In this article you'll learn to create an oil painting effect.
38. How to Create a Dragan Style Portrait Effect
Have you ever seen the works of Andrzej Gragan? His photos have high contrast and specific colors. This tutorial will teach you to mimic this awesome effect.
39. How to Give Your Photos a Glamorous Effect with Charming Make-up
Make-up changes everything. This easy guide will walk you through how to give an ordinary image a glamorous effect with the help of make-up.
40. How to Create a Chocolate Skin Effect
Related Posts
Photoshop offers unlimited potential to photographers for editing and retouching photos. However, the downside to Photoshop is that its wealth of tools and functions can make it quite challenging to master. Even if you have been using Photoshop for years and have access to many cool photoshop effects, there are almost certainly things you can still learn.
Fortunately, there are a lot of websites and blogs that publish helpful tutorials, demonstrating how to create certain effects or do specific edits in Photoshop. These tutorials can be handy for solving a single problem or getting inspiration for a new set of photos.
Whether you're new to Photoshop or a seasoned expert, we highly recommend reading Scott Kelby's book called The Adobe Photoshop CC Book for Digital Photographers. Scott is a best-selling Photoshop author, and you can get his resource on paperback or Kindle.
Here are a few other Photoshop-related books worth looking at, too:
The Adobe Photoshop CS6 Book for Digital Photographers
Adobe Photoshop CS6 For Photographers
Photoshop CC and Lightroom
If you're short on time, you can also use free Photoshop actions or, for Lightroom users, free Lightroom presets. These actions and presets can give you good results with minimal effort.
Keep in mind, though, that if you rely on actions and presets alone, you'll always be dependent on other photographers and companies to get the style you want. For true creative freedom, it's best to get to know the software yourself.
To help you build your knowledge, here are 40 free tutorials about Photoshop effects. We've organized them into 9 categories, so you can quickly find what you're looking for.
Part 2 in this series covers post-processing and photo editing tutorials, especially for landscape and portrait photography. If you don't find what you're looking for here, be sure to check out Part 2!
Color & Lighting Effects
Lighting is the foundation of good photography, and color isn't far behind. A photo can have a striking composition, yet still fall short of success if it has bland colors or poor lighting. Fortunately, you can adjust both in Photoshop. You can either use color and lighting effects like these, or make specific edits like those covered in Part 2.
Apply a Color Effect to a Photo
Control Tonality with the Black & White filter
Match Tone and Color
Create a Warm Golden Sunset Effect
Make a DAWN, SUNRISE from a Midday Photo
Create a Glowing Lights Effect
Effects Using the Curves Adjustment
The Curves Adjustment tool in Photoshop can be intimidating the first time you use it, but it's worth learning. It's a powerful tool for creating soft, matte effects that look especially great with portraits, landscapes, and travel photos.
Create a High Fashion Effect
Create a Soft Haze Effect
Faded Effect
Create a Matte Effect
Tilt-Shift Photography / Depth of Field Effects
There are two ways to experiment with tilt-shift photography. You can either get a special lens for creating tilt-shift photos, or you can take regular photos and adjust them in Photoshop.
Both ways work. Though using Photoshop may feel less 'authentic', it's still effective. (And it's cheaper than buying a new lens.)
But even if you're not interested in tilt-shift photography, you may still want to learn how to adjust your images' depth of field. These tutorials are invaluable for that, too.
Use the Lens Blur Filter to Create Depth of Field
How to Easily Simulate a Tilt-Shift Effect Using Photoshop
How to Digitally Add Shallow Depth of Field
Cinematic Effects
Movies have a wide range of cool styles and ‘looks' that you can imitate in Photoshop. You can download bundles of cinematic Photoshop actions, but why not learn how to create your own? Then, you can get the exact tone and atmosphere you want.
Another way to give your photos a cinematic feel is to create a cinemagraph. With a cinemagraph, you turn a still photo into short video clip or GIF by making one element move repeatedly. For example, you could make raindrops fall or coffee pour from a pot, while everything else remains still.
This combination of photo and video has a surreal beauty that can rivet the viewer's attention. You don't need a special lens or high-tech camera to create a cinemagraph, either. All you need is a tripod, a video camera, and Photoshop.
Give Your Photo a Cinematic Feel
Use Color Grading to Create Cinematic Photos
Create a Dark, Cinematic Effect
Create a Movie-Style Photo Effect
Create a Gritty, High-Contrast and Desaturated Look
How To Make A Cinemagraph for Photoshop Newbies
Vintage / Black & White Effects
‘Vintage' is a broad term that includes all kinds of photos and styles. Some effects are specific, imitating a certain camera from a certain year. Others use film photography only as inspiration. Whether you're going for a nostalgic vibe or a specific look, these tutorials can help you create the exact effects you want.
Vintage Black & White Effect
Authentic Grainy Effect for Black and White Photos
Recreating the Lith Printing Look for Black & White Photos
Old Film Effect
Film Edge Burns
App de whatsapp. Trendy Retro Photo Effect in 3 Easy Steps
Light Leaks and Lomo Effects
Make Your Digital Photo Look Like Film
Grunge and Dirty Retro Photo Effect
HDR / Digital Blending Effects
HDR can provoke strong opinions among photographers. Some love it because it allows them to capture a high-contrast scene without losing any vibrance or color. The photo shows exactly what they saw with their eyes.
Other photographers hate HDR because they think it looks fake. The greens are too bright, the pixels are too soft, and there's too much noise.
Wherever you stand on this debate, it's worth learning the concept of digital blending or HDR photography. Even if you never become a diehard HDR photographer, you'll at least know the process behind it.
Create HDR Effects
Synology apps for windows.
Create a Dynamic Cityscape with 5 Exposures and Digital Blending
Learn How to Blend Exposures
Instagram Hacks
If you're an Instagram user, you might have a favorite filter you use for your Instagram photos. These filters are similar to Photoshop actions, which give you good results but don't teach you how to create the effects yourself. Though fast and easy, the filters limit your creativity and style. Your photos can end up looking like everyone else's.
When you learn how to create your favorite effects, you also learn more about yourself and your style. You can tweak the effects and think beyond what Instagram offers. Your photos will not only look more unique. They'll also be yours, something you created on your own.
How to Make Instagram Filters
Recreate The Instagram Nashville Effect
3 Different Ways to Create a Vignette Effect
Fun Effects for Inspiration
Some effects are meant to make your photos look more beautiful or have a certain vibe. Others are just plain fun. These fun effects can push your Photoshop skills to the next level and give you new ideas to play with.
Create a Circle Polyorama
Create a Funky Perspective of a Model Riding Digital Volume
Create a Painted Portrait Effect Using the Bristle Brush
Things Like Adobe Photoshop Cs2
Quick and Simple Worn Out Psychedelic Poster
Add a Grungy and Scratched Frame to a Photo
Adobe Photoshop Online
Create a Smoke Effect
Things Like Adobe Photoshop
There are many, many more Photoshop tutorials than what's listed here. For more ideas, check out the photo editing tutorials in Part 2!
