This is a quick Photoshop tip aimed at complete beginners. It only modifies the mood and general feel of the photo. It could be useful in certain cases like children’s books or certain pink, Death Metal CD covers.

The Result

Before:

After:

The Document

Head on over to discordiA-stock and download and open the Beech Tree stock image in Photoshop. Resize the image to 670 by 500pixels. If you don’t resize it, you’ll need to increase the filter ranges that you’ll be using.

The Glow

Create a duplicate of your Background layer by dragging the layer to the Create a New Layer icon {}. Go to the Image/ Adjustments menu and click on the Brightness/Contrast entry.

Set the Brightness to a value around 90 and the Contrast to 25.

Now, to make it glow, you just have to blur the layer. First of all, set the Layer’s Blending mode to Overlay. Go to the Filter/Blur menu and click the Gaussian Blur entry

Set a small Radius value for the Gaussian Blur (2.8).

To add some more of that magical bling, create two more copies of the Background layer. Select one of them and go to the Filter/ Blur menu again and click the Motion Blur entry.

Set the Motion Blur angle to -45 and the Distance to 30 pixels or so.

Select the second layer and repeat the Motion Blur step, but this time enter an Angle of 45.

Finally, select one of the Motion Blurred layers and go to the Filter/Brush Strokes menu and click the Crosshatch entry. Leave everything at default and click ok.

Finally, rearrange the duplicated layers (reverse order) and set the Motion Blurred layers to Overlay. Also, drop their Opacity to 40% or so.

Kinetsʹ

Yes, it’s a really primitive effect but you’ve got to admit it could come in handy sometimes. You never know when you need some awkwardly blingish, oversaturated photo.