After “The 300″ movie, we are crazy about the effect. We tried to search the photo tutorial for how to create this effect but no luck However, we finally made it by ourselves. Now, we would like share with you step by step how to create “the 300″ effect in Photoshop.

Original Photo:

Step 1: Add Channel Mixer as layer and set the channel Red, Green & Blue to the value below:
Channel Red:
Red = 80%
Green = 0%
Blue = 0%
Constant = -2%

Channel Green:
Red = 76%
Green = 0%
Blue = 0%
Constant = 0%

Channel Blue:
Red = 65%
Green = 4%
Blue = 8%
Constant = 0%

Step 2: Set the layer mode = Color / Opacity = 70%

Step 3: Duplicate background to a new layer and rename it to “Soft”.

Step 4: Apply Gaussian Blur filter to “Soft” layer. Radius = 2.0 pixels.

Step 5: Set the layer mode = Overlay / Opacity = 85%

Below photo is after applied “The 300″ Effect:

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Another Sample:

Recently I am trying out black and white effect and next level or advanced level of B&W will be duotone or tritone.

I have learned some technique how to do duotone and today i would like to share with our pixelraves’ reader how to archive it step by step in Photoshop CS3.

Here is the start photo with color.

Step 1: Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Channel Mixer

Step 2: In Channel Mixer, convert the photo to grayscale mode by select the preset to “Black & White with Orange Filter“, make sure the Output Channel is Gray. Adjust the source channels value for Red, Green and Blue to your like. and click OK.

Now you get a basic Black & White photo.

Step 3: Even you got Black and White photo, but you need to convert to Grayscale mode before you can select the Duotone mode. If you can see the Duotone mode enabled, the reason is you are not in Grayscale mode.

Step 4: After you have converted to Grayscale and Duotone, you will get Duotone Options dialog box. Usually the Ink 1 will be Black, Ink 2 you can whatever color you want. In this tutorial, I have selected light blue from PANTONE 306 C. Hold on, you are not done yet. You can further enhance your duotone effect by changing the value of the curve. Once you have satisfied the adjustment, click OK.

Here is the final Black & White photo with Duotone effect.

One of the fancier lenses in the world of SLR and digital SLR (DSLR) photography is the tilt-shift lens. Architectural photographers use tilt-shift lenses to eliminate the perspective distortions that sometimes give buildings the appearance of falling over. Aerial photographers use them to make large cities look like toy models. Art and portrait photographers use them to control exactly where the focus falls.

Tilt and Shift lens can create nice effect but it will cost you a bomb as well. One of the samples of T&S lens is Lensbabies. 2.0 version cost USD$150 and 3G version cost USD$270 (http://www.lensbabies.com)

However, you can fake the Tilt and Shift effect by using Adobe Photoshop and today I will show you step by step how to do this.

Open up your photo and make any usual correction before start step 1.

Step 1: Click the Quick Mask mode button.

Step 2: Select Gradient Tool to indicate the parts of the image that you want to blur. Go to option bar at the top of the screen and click the reflected gradient type (the button that looks like a cylinder. Next, click the drop down button to bring up a small panel of gradient presets and select the box that black at top left hand corner and fades to white at the opposite corner.

Step 3: Click in the middle of your desired focus point and drag out a gradient line to the edge of the photo.

Step 4: Use the Curves (Image -> Adjustments -> Curves) to adjust how much you want to blur the photo.

Step 5: Now go back to Standard Mode and select Lens Blur filter (Filter -> Blur -> Lens Blur) to artifact the narrow depth of field.

Step 6: Adjust the blue by set the Blade Curvature to 100, Brightness to 0, Noise to 0 and Radius to 50 (adjust it to get the nice effect that you want). Click OK.

Step 7: Now you done and you can remove the selection. (Select -> Deselect).

Now you can see the before and after Tilt & Shift Lens Effect.