Question

Question:

Near the start of the last James Bond movie (Casino Royale), there’s a black and white fight scene that’s got an amazing grainy and high contrast look. What’s the best way to mimic this effect?

I’m trying to create a James Dean-style city scene with a model walking in the rain. I’ve got some source files shot on a pleasant day, but would like to add rain to them in Photoshop. How do I do this? Alistair Webster

Distressing text with brushes

Here’s a technique that will work in any version of Photoshop. It enables you to quickly brighten up underexposed sections of the shot without burning out correctly exposed areas.

Photoshop is such a powerful package that it provides you with many ways to produce creative yet realistic effects. A font engraved into a metal surface is easy enough to achieve by using the Horizontal Type tool to create the text, followed up with a quick tinker with Layer Styles. Check out the steps below in order to engrave text in metal without breaking into a sweat.

Photoshop has a command that creates contact sheets in a jiffy. In CS2 go to File>Automate>Contact Sheet II. Alternatively, use the steps below to create one in Bridge.

This type of compositing challenge can be solved with help from the Layers palette, the Transform command and some gentle layer blends. Start off by opening two suitable source files of the happy couple and a wine glass.

The trick to protecting colours when altering contrast lies in desaturating a copy of the original image, altering its tonal range to create a dramatic contrast and then reintroducing the original colour info. Here’s how…

The following techniques will enable you to add as much blur as you like to any section of the shot, so you can achieve a perfect balance between motion blur and image sharpness.