Postprocessing - overlay diffusion

This effect was done with Adobe Photoshop CS4. Thanks to model Bonnie for posing. Overlay diffusion - blowing out highlights The technique of overlay diffusion works especially well with photographs shot on a white background. It will enhance contrast and slightly blow out highlights. It uses a bit of Gaussian blur and the Overlay layer mode. The whole procedure is summarized in the image below and takes a few minutes: The steps First, load the original image.     Clone the layer (Ctrl-J) and apply a Gaussian filter. This one uses around 15 pixels, with a 10 megapixel photograph.     Set the new layer's mode to Overlay. Notice the image now gets a bit too saturated. We'll work on that.     First, add a Curves adjustment layer to add a bit of lighting. This makes the highlights blow out a bit and generally smoothens the skin. It's still a bit too saturated though...     Add a 'Hue/Saturation' layer now to reduce some of the saturation. Here, I used -23, but adjust this to your liking. Return to list of post process tutorials.

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