In this Photoshop tutorial, we’ll cover how to create five different moody Photoshop preset actions that we’ll be gearing specifically for portrait, but really could be used for any type of image in Photoshop. We will use the point curve in Camera Raw and the Hue, Saturation, Luminance sliders in Camera Raw almost exclusively to create these five different effects. Enjoy the video!
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The Basic Changes
In the Basics tab, boost the Whites slider to +20 and reduce the Blacks slider to -40.
The Curves and Color Channel Changes
Choose the Curves tab and select the “Point” tab and try to follow the curve I created in the screenshot. Also jump into the Red, Green, and Blue channels and try to create/copy the curves as I have in my screenshots.
Tweaking HSL Sliders
Next, jump over to the HSL/Grayscale icon and change your settings to what I’ve got in the series of screenshots here.
Adding Grain
Head over to the Effects tab and choose to add grain and increase the size and roughness as you see fit and think looks good for your image. Usually, it can be a good idea to add at least a tiny bit of grain to at least blend some of the colors and tones of the image together and reducing any color banding that may have popped up while editing. (TIP: Shoot in RAW and edit in 16-bit to avoid these problems, for the most part.)
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