Cassie's Clips: How to Add Natural Light, Color Burns & Overlays to Your Screenshots With Photoshop

After a brief but much missed absence, Cassie Middles (don't forget to subscribe) is back on New World Notes with a new Photoshop tutorial for enhancing your screenshots: Adding natural light, as well as color burns and overlays.

"A good tip is to check out Deviant Art for stock lighting and vectors you can use in your photos. Please always make sure to read their licensing to see if it's okay to use, or if you need to use credits as well! The one included in this video was free to use, with no credit needed or any rules." (Link below.)

 

"A lot of these techniques are trial and error, working on figuring out which blending would look best with the overlay you use. I decided to use color burn with a lowered opacity on mine! It's always fun to try new things and mess with lighting or editing tips! When in doubt though, ctrl+J! it always makes a new layer that you're working on, helping you be less stressed about messing up, and more inspired to take some chances and experiment! But the main new things I've been enjoying work with are:

• Selective color, making skin look a bit more realistic and less red or yellow.
• Color overlay or color burn. This is effective when messing with the blending layers, making it overlay neatly.
• I used color dodge for this one.
• I also have been having fun with more dramatic shadows and grays.

More tips and resources after the break:

A few more tips:

• Again, always Ctrl+J when you're testing out something new! if there's ever anything you're unsure of, or you're experimenting, ctrl+j helps create a new layer from the last used, so you can easily erase or undo if needed!
• Too bright in contrast? Mess with the sliders on the contrast and brightness options, OR use the highlight burn tool to slowly bring it down to normalcy before using mid-tones to shadow it more evenly.
• Unable to move the new layer into each corner of the screen when adding it over another photo? Make sure you have "show transform controls" when on your selection tools, letting you move, rotate, warp, etc."

Music from video here: https://www.audioblocks.com/royalty-free-audio/ambience-music

Dust particles used here: https://www.deviantart.com/kerast/art/Dust-particles-on-lens-461101707

 

Much more tutorials and other goodness on Cassie's YouTube, which you should definitely subscribe to.