Happy Sunday! Well, it is not such a happy weekend for parts of LA and TX. The rain has been intense on the Gulf Coast. I hope all of my LA readers are high and dry. I know it is scary over there right now. We were supposed to go to the beach (Galveston Island) this weekend but couldn't leave town due to the heavy rains. My parents are still at their old house but are not flooded in yet. The rain is coming in waves which allows it to somewhat drain away before the next heavy one hits. Hoping and praying that this rain is not a repeat of the two 500-year floods we had a few months ago. Our yard is soaked but so far so good. It is a perfect day to read, watch movies, and write actions. Today I have a gorgeous new Photoshop/PSE action called "Beach Dreams Water & Sky". This action allows you to paint gorgeous bright browns and blues on your beach images and is part of my favorite beach edit "Sanibel Beach Dreams". You can read the complete step-by-step Action UnWrapped tutorial to see what is going "under the hood" when this action runs. Next week I will be releasing the next action that goes with this set called "Beach Dreams Rosy Sky". This action allows you to hand paint in a stunning rosy-ivory vintage effect on the image. I love adding this to beach portraits! (edited with "Sanibel Beach Dreams") If you want to grab the full "Sanibel Beach Dreams" Photoshop/PSE action that is an all-in-one beach edit (retouching, blue sky and beach, gorgeous sand, rosy-ivory vintage effect), it is now a part of my CoffeeShop Action Download pack. Purchasing my convenient download packs support this site and keep everything here free! And to thank you for your support there are several actions included as a special gift that are not found for free here on my blog (Sanibel Beach Dreams, Magic Retouching Make-Up Kit, and the Watermarking Kit). One of the many perks of purchasing my action packs is that I will send you updated packs up to two years after your initial purchase. And I usually update them weekly with new goodies! If you have purchased my action download pack within two years I will send you the newest version with "Sanibel Beach Dreams" and all of the other actions I have added since your purchase. :-) Now let me show you how to use today's action on your image. CoffeeShop "Beach Dreams Water & Sky" Action Tutorial: The gorgeous original image is by Jessica Edwards Photography. If your image needs a pretty sky, you can read this Beach Sky tutorial. I have several free beach sky overlay sets. If you want to check out some beautiful sky overlays for purchase, you should check out Pretty Actions. Run the action on your image. Other than a slight added brightness, there will be no other noticeable changes. You have to paint on the layer masks with a soft white brush to add the effects on your image. You can also change the colors or blending modes of the layers if needed. Beach Sand: I used a soft white 100% opacity brush on the "Beach Sand" layer mask to add the bright brown to the sand, hat, and the girl. I kept that layer at 100% opacity. The white area is where I added the "Beach Sand" layer. You can see this type of effect on your layer mask by clicking on the layer mask while holding the alt/option key. Water: Click on the "Water" layer mask and use a soft white brush to paint on the beach water. Then adjust the opacity to taste (62% in this edit). Sky: Click on the "Sky" layer mask and use a soft white brush to paint on the sky. Adjust the opacity to taste (43% in this edit). Go back and adjust the opacities of the layers if needed (I lowered the opacity of the water to make it less blue). You can also click to open up the top "Brighten" Levels adjustment layer and adjust the sliders to taste. I hope you enjoyed this edit! Go grab the "Beach Dreams Rosy Sky" action for your next editing step! Grab the full "Sanibel Beach Dreams" deluxe action in my download pack. Download the Free CoffeeShop "Beach Dreams Water & Sky" Photoshop/PSE action. You can also download it here. Do you want to download thousands of professional CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop actions (including exclusive ones not found anywhere for free), textures/overlays, scrapbooking papers, clip art/design elements, photo storyboards and frames, and Lightroom presets from this site in one convenient zipped file AND help support this one-woman blog? Just click here for my CoffeeShop Mega Download Pack!

Today I wanted to post a new 5x7 photo storyboard set that has easy-to-load clipping masks and come with a free loading action! These templates would make great greeting cards, prints for your wall, or social media posts. Turn them 90 degrees and get a total of 8 unique storyboards! They also can be resized larger, but do this before adding your images. Download the CoffeeShop "Simple Shapes" Photoshop/PSE Photo Template Set! Do you want to download thousands of professional CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop actions (including exclusive ones not found anywhere for free), textures/overlays, scrapbooking papers, clip art/design elements, photo storyboards and frames, and Lightroom presets from this site in one convenient zipped file AND help support this one-woman blog? Just click here for my CoffeeShop Mega Download Pack!

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

Today I wanted to post a new Photoshop/PSE Fine Art texture editing tutorial. In this tutorial I will show you how I use my War & Peace texture and a Solid Color Fill Layer to turn a photo into wall art. This is also a wonderful technique if you like to to make greeting cards or edited images to post on social media/websites/blogs. You don't have to use your own images to create beautiful art to hang on your walls. Use any free image, like ones found on Unsplash. In this tutorial I edited an image from Anita Austvika. Check out her other work, it is gorgeous! This editing tutorial is so easy, it takes only a few minutes and any beginner in Photoshop/PSE can do it! You can download the edited print I made in this tutorial here. CoffeeShop Photoshop/PSE Fine Art Texture Tutorial: Open your image. Add Warmth: Add a Solid Color fill layer, Hex# fde4b9. Put this layer in Soft Light blending mode. This really brightens and warms up the image. Add Fine Art Texture: Click and Drag or Place one of my free War & Peace textures on top and transform it to fit. Put the texture layer in Overlay Blending mode, 65% opacity. You can also use Soft Light, Screen, or Multiply in this step. Each blending mode will give you a different custom look and you can combine them and/or adjust opacities to taste. Final Contrast Adjustments: If you want to adjust the contrast, add a Levels adjustment layer. I usually add it under the texture, but you can add it on top of all the layers if you like the effect more. In the example above I didn't change any of the adjustments on the Levels curve and simply put that layer in Multiply blending mode. In this example I put the Levels layer in Screen blending mode, 40% opacity. I love the bright softness in this edit. Alternatively, keep the Levels layer in Normal mode and open up its settings and adjust the sliders under the curve and Output Levels. I added some contrast in this example. Isn't this lovely! Print and frame it or print out your own custom greeting cards. You could also add a quote and post it on social media. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I would love to see your own edits posted my Facebook page. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

Today I have a beautiful new matte action thanks to the talented photographer Leslie Hoffman (see some of her work here). She contacted me on Facebook and asked me if I had a soft matte-effect action with a reddish tint. Well, I didn't then but I have one now! Leslie sent some of her images over to me and after a few back-and-forths I was able to write an action that she loved, and today I am posting it here to share with all of you. "Matte Enchantment" is a completely adjustable matte-effect action with a beautiful subtle warm tint, perfect for outdoor portraits. Leslie also wanted a new matte B&W action and with her help I was able to design it and it will be coming out in a few days! I love when you ask me to create specific freebies for my site. I am always looking for inspiration and you might just get a free custom-designed action or storyboard!!! You can see the before and after above in this image from Leslie Hoffman. Here is another one before and after with an image from Leslie. In my ad at top I also used this gorgeous swimsuit image as an example. CoffeeShop "Matte Enchantment" Photoshop/PSE Tutorial: This is the original image. Run "Matte Enchantment". There will be only one adjustment you make while the action is running. This Curves adjustment layer (not available on PSE UNLESS you use an action!) allows you to fine-tune the matte-effect. Just move the circled dot around until you have a nice low contrast image. Then press OK. This is what the image looks like after the action finishes. Simply adjust the layers to taste! I would love to see your before and after images on my Facebook page. Download the CoffeeShop "Matte Enchantment" Photoshop/PSE Action. You can also download it here or in my Action Download Pack. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

I was supposed to post this yesterday, but it was so stormy yesterday I didn't want to turn on my computer. Luckily we didn't float away or have any new leaks, so I am back! Here is my newest tinted B&W action called "Chamomile Tea B&W". This action is so pretty on so many different types of images and it is fully adjustable. I wanted to thank the generous photographers at Unsplash for the images I used in this post. (succulent, bridal bouquet, woman in white, baby shoes, woman with flower in hair, ferris wheel) and Jill Wellington (Etsy Shop, Facebook, Blog, YouTube Videos, Pixabay) for the gorgeous portrait I used in my tutorial below. CoffeeShop "Chamomile Tea B&W" Action Tutorial: Run the "Chamomile Tea B&W" action on the image. This is what the edit looks like with no adjustments. Adjust each layer's opacity to taste and/or paint on the layer masks. For this edit I turned on "White Rescue" add adjusted the opacity to 64% to recover detail on her white dress. Then I turned on "Brighten Shadows" and adjusted the opacity to 61%. This is such a pretty soft-looking edit! Download the CoffeeShop "Chamomile Tea B&W" Photoshop/PSE Action. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

I love making textures and have used many different techniques to create the ones I post here on my blog. Some I have photographed, others I have created using a painterly program like Topaz, many are combinations of several different of my own textures, and quite a few are created from public domain art images using Photoshop. Today I want to walk you through how I created several of the texture in my Pissarro set. This tutorial was done in Photoshop as I use the Patch tool (which is not in PSE), but you can adapt it to PSE by using the Healing Brush. These textures can be used alone as papers or layered on designs/photos/images. The sky is the limit! You can also make them to sell or share. All of the original images I used in this tutorial are from Raw Pixel. CoffeeShop Photoshop/PSE Tutorial: Creating Fine Art Textures from Public Domain Images Download the original art piece. Use the rectangular Marquee tool to crop out the area highlighted above. In Photoshop, grab the Patch Tool and select the building on the left and then drag the selection to a clear pink area on top. The building is gone and the new selection is perfectly blended in! I love the Photoshop Patch tool, but if you are using PSE you can use the Healing Brush tool. Click to select it and then alt-click on the area you want to copy and then start painting over the building. Make sure to click on several different areas when selecting the pink background so it blends in well. Repeat with the building on the right. And it is already looking really good! But I want to turn this into a seamless pattern so I can make a large texture using this small piece. Go to the top menubar and click Filter

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

Every week I would like to go back and revisit Photoshop/PSE actions that I posted a while ago. I have hundreds of actions on this site so this is a good way to find some "hidden gems"! Today I wanted to edit this image using "Freelensing Bliss"and "Fashionista Luxe". The tutorial is below. (original) (original) (original) (original) Photoshop/PSE Tutorial: Open the image and make a duplicate layer. Then use the Lasso tool to select the area you want to stay in focus. Run Freelensing Bliss and adjust the Gaussian Blur to soften the focus line. After the action finishes running, turn off the B&W setting and turn on one of the Brighten the Whites layer and adjust the opacity to add some highlights. Turn on the Desaturate layer and adjust the Master Saturation slider to taste. Then run Fashionista Luxe and turn adjust the opacity of the Boost and Matte layer. Lovely!!! I hope you enjoyed today's revisit of two of my older actions. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures.

So, it is the last day of 2020 and it is pouring down rain and dismal. Seems fitting, right? Tomorrow can't come too soon, but I am looking on the bright side and thinking about all of the valuable things I learned this Year of the Virus. I listed a few below. For one, I won't ever again underestimate how important it is to be able to visit and hug loved ones. My mother-in-law is in a memory-care home and we haven't had face-to-face time or hugged her in almost a year. My kids and I volunteered in a nursing home once a month and I miss seeing their happy faces and giving them hugs. Talking to them. Seeing their expressions. And I have many friends and relatives with health struggles that put them in the high-risk category that I haven't seen in person for so long. Second, there are many things that I used to find annoying I miss so much. Like waiting in a long line. In the "old days" if you pulled yourself away from your phone you would spend that time chatting with strangers. I miss talking with random people when I am out in stores so much. I miss seeing faces. I miss seeing smiles. I hate standing in a little painted circle on the floor distanced from humanity. Third, how much I miss festivals and crowds of rowdy happy people. Often I would skip my local festivals since I am what I consider an introvert with a touch of extrovert. I can enjoying being around lots of people for a short time (and will talk up a storm), but then I need to get back home to relax and recharge. Well, now I would give so much to go to a festival with hundreds/thousands of people enjoying themselves. I want to be surrounded by people, I want to have to struggle to get through a crowd. I want strangers pushing against me to buy a funnel cake. I want dogs on short leashes trying to nuzzle my hand as their owners pull them by. I want to see kids screaming with excitement as they wait, almost crushed, in long lines for the festival rides. I want to see drunk people spilling their beer as they laugh with friends, teenagers smooching while watching concerts, long lost friends walking by who grab you to catch up. So may 2021 bring back fearless hugs and kisses, pleasant conversations with strangers, and being able to be surrounded by people, lots and lots of people. May we look back at 2020 and not only feel sadness about a difficult year, but realize that it has taught us how important it is for us to have people in our lives, whether they are loved ones, friends, neighbors, acquaintances or strangers. May 2021 be the Year of Closeness! I hope you have a wonderful day today and a happy New Year. Thank you for reading my blog, sharing my posts, leaving wonderful comments, and buying my action/design packs. I really appreciate you so much. Today I am posting a tutorial on how I created a B&W bird image using my newest texture set. You can download the Cezanne texture used in this tutorial on that post. I love this texture set, it is one of my favorite sets I have ever made! You can download the original bird photo here. I wanted to show you that you aren't bound to the color or shape of a texture, you can change it however you want for each image. Place the Cezanne 4 texture on top of the bird. I compressed it into a square shape. Put the texture in Overlay blending mode and copy it once. Pretty interesting colors, right? Add a Black to White Gradient Map layer on top to create a B&W image. Add a Gold to Light Gold Gradient Map in Color blending mode to tint the B&W. Notice all of the white blown-out areas on the background where you don't see the texture? There is an easy fix to add texture to those spots! Add a Solid Color fill layer just above the bird layer. I used a gray, but you can also grab a color from the image. Put this layer in Normal blending mode and paint out the bird using a soft black low-medium opacity brush on the layer mask. I used a lower opacity brush on areas where I wanted to see more texture. Note: To see where you have painted click the "" key to see the red tint, recheck to remove it. I am simply darkening the background by adding more color where needed. Then adjust the opacity of the layer to taste, I used 60%. Now the background looks solid and beautiful! Hope you enjoyed this short little tutorial. And Happy New Year! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures.

I just blogged about the flooding rains we had late last week, and we are getting hit again this week. My sister and her kids are safe in Dallas and my mom, dad, and their dog and cat are safely booked in a hotel in town for the next few days. That way they won't get flooded in with me if the rains continue as expected. Other than my ceiling leak we are doing fine so far. It is going to be a long, stressful week. I have had some time on the computer this morning (I needed a sanity break!) and I was able to finish my newest action called "Perfect Matte B&W". This action looks amazing on so many images and it is fully adjustable. PSE users even have access to the Curves adjustment layer when they use this action to make that perfect "matte-effect". Today I am using some gorgeous images from Sarah Mak Photography (Facebook). I am a huge fan of her work and I am so honored she is allowing me to use them in my tutorial. Playing with such gorgeous images (all girls!) really takes my mind off the horrid weather. :-) CoffeeShop "Perfect Matte B&W" Photoshop/PSE Action Tutorial: This is the original image. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this in color, but I thought it would also be stunning in B&W. I ran "Perfect Matte B&W". There is only one pop-up, a Curves adjustment layer. It is preset, but you can drag the circled dot around to get the perfect Matte-effect for each image. In this case I didn't want the dark background to fade away and there was too much Matte. So I moved the curve down and to the left. I love this version! This is what the image looks like after the action finished. I lowered the opacity of the Brighten Whites layer to 48% to keep the white highlights on her dress from blowing out. If you have really white areas in your image you can change the blending mode of this layer to Multiply. Then I went to the Matte layer and lowered it to 85%. Now it is a perfect matte B&W edit. ;-) Download the CoffeeShop "Perfect Matte B&W" Photoshop/PSE action. You can also download it here or get hundreds of my actions in one download here. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

Photoshop and PSE have some really neat presets hidden in their program and today I am going to show you how to make your own custom rainbow overlay in Photoshop or (affiliate link) Photoshop Elements using one of these hidden gradients! Click here to download the set I made for this post and a step-by-step tutorial on how to add them to your own images. Seagull original image CoffeeShop "Creating Custom Rainbow Overlays" Photoshop/PSE Tutorial: Go to the top menubar and click Edit. Change the Preset Type to Gradients on the top. Click on the little cog to the top and right of the Preset Type drop-down menubar and select Special Effects. Click Append on the pop-up. You don't want to replace all of your gradients, just add these to your set. The last gradient is a rainbow as seen above. I realize it is also in the screenshots above this one, but it is because I added it earlier and forgot to delete it before doing the screenshots for th is tutorial. :-) Now we can make our custom rainbow overlay. I make my New Document pretty large, 5000 pixels by 3333 pixels, but you can create your own custom size. Open your Gradient tool and click to select the rainbow gradient. Click the shaded circle on the top menubar just to the right of the gradient. Click and drag on the blank document. In this example I made a simple circle. I could move this around to reposition it or make a new one with a different rainbow. Once you are happy with the placement of your rainbow save the file as a png and you are ready to start using them on your own images. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend. This is the first time in my life I won't be celebrating it with my sisters and parents. It is going to be especially sad that our kids can't get together... But this will pass. The news lately is getting a little more positive and I am seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope you and your loved ones are doing ok. I was in the mood to write a new soft pastel action, so today I am sharing CoffeeShop "Ocean Mist". This action is gorgeous on most images and is fully customizable. You can use this to make a high contrast image too as I posted below in one of my examples. Original images used in this post: (butterfly, flowers). CoffeeShop "Ocean Mist" Action Tutorial: For this image, I turned on both Ocean layers along with Soft and Bright. I didn't turn on Mist as I wanted some contrast. I did use the layer mask to remove some of the Ocean layer off the butterfly and flower so they weren't so blue. Add the gray Bethany texture in Soft Light for this gorgeous edit. Turn off Soft and Bright and you have a completely different edit. I hope you enjoy this action! Click HERE to Download the CoffeeShop " Ocean Mist" Fine Art Action! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

I have so many actions available now that I often get overwhelmed trying to figure out which one to use on an edit. I am sure you have the same problem, so every week I am going to put up a tutorial using some of my past actions. Today I am editing this gorgeous portrait using the CoffeeShop "2 Minute Miracle Plus" and "Aphrodite" actions. You can download both free actions on the posts and also find step-by-step instructions on applying them to your image. I also have a special action/preset download pack where you can get all of my favorite actions/presets in one simple download (hundreds of actions plus some bonus ones not found here on my site!) and help support my blog. 1. This is my starting image. You can download it here (and check out Lisa's other free images). 2. Adjusting Contrast: I started by adding a Levels adjustment layer and lightening the midtowns and highlights by moving their sliders to the left. This caused some hot spots (blown-out areas) on her nose and upper forehead. I used a soft black low opacity brush and clicked to select the layer mask and painted some of that layer off her nose and forehead. Then I noticed her eyes and lower left part of her face has some shadows that I want to soften. 3. Soften Shadows: I added a Levels adjustment layer and put it in screen mode. It has completely blown out the image but don't worry. I clicked on its layer mask and filled it with black. Then I used a soft white low opacity brush and carefully painted over areas where I wanted to remove shadows and improve the overall lighting. 4. 2 Minute Miracle Plus Action: I ran my "2 Miracle Miracle Plus" action. I edited the eyes using Eye Define, Bright Eyes, and White Whites. I was happy with the Smooth Skin layer so I left it alone, and I dialed up Boost to 64%. 5. Aphrodite Action: I finished up my edit by running my "Aphrodite" action. This is one of my absolute favorite actions to run on portraits. After the action finished I only made one change. I turned on the Contrast Boost layer, brought it up to 80% opacity, and then used a soft black 100% opacity brush and painted over her face. This is a nifty way to burn in the background. Quite a difference, right? Never be afraid to combine actions. And your own edits can be very subtle or dramatic like the image I edited here. Have fun and create your own photo art! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

I am going to feature more fine art Photoshop/PSE tutorials on my blog so you can use my freebies to create your own original artwork! Today I want to show you how to edit with one of my Sunset Dreams actions (Photoshop/PSE) and then add a setting sun overlay and a beautiful painting texture to create your own custom art! This is a great technique for those special images you want to create for yourself or sell for wall art or print out for cards/calendars/etc. You can grab the original images used in this post on Pixabay (dog, love). CoffeeShop "Sunset Dreams & Texture" Fine Art Photoshop/PSE Tutorial: I have two "Sunset Dreams" Photoshop/PSE actions. I am going to use the premium "Sunset Dreams Deluxe" first on this edit. This action is only found in my CoffeeShop Download Action/Preset pack, and applies a beautiful sunset tint and automatically creates and adds a gorgeous sunset overlay so you don't need to add your own overlay. It is so easy and fast and the results are amazing! My download pack includes several premium actions you can't find anywhere else, and purchase of it makes this blog possible. :-) If you don't have that action, you can get similar results using the "Sunset Dreams" action here on my blog and adding of of my Sunray/Sunburst overlays. I will walk you through that edit also down below. :-) Run "Sunset Dreams Deluxe" on your image. If you don't have this action you can also use the one on my blog noted above! When the Levels adjustment settings pop up, adjust the sliders under the curve and the left Output Levels slider to adjust the contrast. It is preset to be matte, but you can adjust for more dramatic contrast. This can be further adjusted after the action finishes running. I moved the sliders to apply a more dramatic contrast effect. Now the action will create and add a beautiful Sunset overlay. Note: If you are not using the "Sunset Dreams Deluxe" action you will have to manually add a sunburst texture. I walk you through how to do that that several steps below. But most other adjustments are similar. Adjust the size and placement to taste. It can be adjusted additionally once the action finishes running. This is the image after the action finishes. You can make adjustments to all of the layers to create you own custom edit. I will walk you through my edit of this dog image. I clicked on the "Sunset Extreme" layer's mask and grabbed a soft black low-opacity brush and painted some of the effect off of the dog to lighten him somewhat. I turned down the opacity of the "Add Light" layer to 30%. I did not turn on "Lighten Shadows" for this edit. Then I added the CoffeeShop "Memories" texture. And adjusted it to fit the image and moved it on top of the layers. I put the texture in Soft Light blending mode at 85%. You can also delete or turn off the "Sun" overlay layer if you would prefer this type of edit. If you don't have the "Sunset Dreams Deluxe" premium action you can also use my "Sunset Dreams" action found here on my blog. Run the action and adjust each layer to taste. Then open one of my Sunray/Sunburst overlays from this pack. Drag the overlay on top and adjust the size and placement to taste (Ctrl-T for free transform). Then put the overlay in Screen Blending mode. I think the finished result is so beautiful! I want to show you one more edit using this technique. I ran the "Sunset Dreams Deluxe" action and adjusted each layer as seen in the screenshot above. I also removed some of the "Sunset Extreme" layer off of the couple by using a soft low-opacity black brush on its layer mask. I have a nifty trick I use to remove texture off of skin without affecting colors/contrast using Gaussian blur. Click here to read that tutorial. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I would love to see your own edits on my Facebook page. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

Today I wanted to walk you through a quick and easy texture tutorial using my newest Bredon Hill textures. (original image) Add the Bredon Hill brown texture in Overlay blending mode. Add a Levels adjustment layer and darken the image by moving the middle gamma slider under the curve to the right and the Output Levels white slider to the left. Then slide the highlight slider slightly to the left. I used a soft, low-opacity, black brush on the layer mask to remove some of this layer off the bird. To darken the image even more but add some light around the bird, I added another Levels adjustment layer in Multiply blending mode, 61% Opacity and used the layer mask to remove it off of the bird. Here is another example using similar settings. (original image) Hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures.

Today I am posting this beautiful vintage-inspired action that has two optional automatic texture layers. I love to add textures to my images but sometimes I want someone else to do all of the texture work, so I wrote this action. I am a huge Jane Austen fan so I decided to name this one after her. If needed, make adjustments to the texture layers as the action runs. I usually just leave them as programmed. You can adjust all of the layers, and turn on one or both of the texture layers (Painted and Vintage). Adjust the layers' opacity to taste. This is the original image. I downloaded it from Pixabay. This is the finished image after running the action, no adjustments. Vintage texture layer turned on. Painting texture layer turned on. Painting texture + dialed down the opacity of Add Vintage Haze layer. Here is another edit. Mouse over to see the "before". I hope you have fun playing with this action! Download the CoffeeShop Jane Austen's Romance Photoshop/PSE Action. You can also download it here. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

Today I finally am posting my newest free action called CoffeeShop "Dream Catcher". This name was suggested by LENNÉ on my Facebook page. Thank you everyone for helping me name this one! I love this type of color edit. My action applies a gorgeous cool pastel (almost painterly) tint to images. Like most of my actions, it is fully adjustable in every way so you can customize it for each of your own images. You can see some examples posted below. Original images used in this post: (beachside, couple on tracks, field, woman, kissing couple, succulent). CoffeeShop "Dream Catcher" Photoshop/PSE Action Tutorial: (original image) This is what the image looks like after running the action, with no adjustments. I turned on the "Haze 2" layer and adjusted the opacity to 32% as I wanted more of the bluish pastel effect. (original image) In this edit I turned on "Haze" and set it at 90%. Then I opened up the "Contrast Adjustment" layer and changed the blending mode to Normal and adjust the Shadows and dark Output Levels sliders as seen above. I think this edit is so pretty and dreamy! (original image) On this image I turned on the "White Rescue Max" (100%) and Haze (25%) layers. Then I lowered the "Contrast Adjustment" layer to 60%. I would love to see your edits using this action on my Facebook page! Download the CoffeeShop "Dream Catcher" Photoshop/PSE action! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

Today I am posting a new tinted B&W action, Velvet Mocha Matte. This is a fully adjustable and looks great on so many different types of images. I will post a step-by-step Action UnWrapped tutorial in a future post and a editing tutorial using texture and this action. I also wrote a LR preset for this same effect and I will post that in a day or two! When you run the action, the High Pass filter will pop up. You can adjust this, but I usually leave it at 10. I used a beautiful image from Vanilla Tree Photography in this post. I wanted to go further in this edit and add a texture (one of mine on this blog) and did some dodging/burning and came up with this version. This is the step-by-step tutorial. I really like this version, it is very vintage and soft. Download the free CoffeeShop Velvet Mocha Matte action. You can also download it here. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

Hope you are doing OK. My family is fine, just taking it day by day and trying not to drive each other crazy. Is it me or was March a year long? And did you notice that puzzles are sold out everywhere??? We are doing a puzzle exchange with some family members. I was lucky and snagged two really good ones at Barnes and Noble's "deliver to your car" yesterday. I laugh when I say "lucky" since previous to Corona 2020 I was NOT a puzzle person. I also snagged a few good books for Paul and the boys. Book-wise I am fine and catching up on my Kindle library books. Plus I have a pile of books on my to-read shelf. We are trying to make sure we stay caught up with school so we can take most of the summer off and enjoy getting out of the house. I really miss people. Stay safe and have faith times will get better. (original image) Today I wanted to share my newest free action, CoffeeShop "Sweet Soft Blue". This edit is such a beautiful soft blue and is fully adjustable. Just run it and adjust the layers to taste. In the examples above I didn't make any adjustments at all. I hope you enjoy using it! I would love to see your own edits using Sweet Soft Blue on my Facebook page. I think this action is crying out to be used on some Easter images. Download the CoffeeShop "Sweet Soft Blue" Photoshop/PSE Action! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

I posted a tutorial a few weeks ago about combining the Sun Kissed action with Once Upon a Time, and I realized it was time to update my Sun Kissed action so that it would be easy to remove that fake-looking lens flare that always screams "Photoshopped!". Today I am posting SunKissed 2, which is a replacement for Sun Kissed (one of my most-downloaded actions). This action does everything Sun Kissed does, but allows you to soften or remove those fake funny-colored glare spots. You can find the action download at the bottom of this post. CoffeeShop SunKissed 2 Action Tutorial: Open your image and start the action. Pick your favorite Lens Flare and adjust the placement and Brightness. Here is the finished image. I have circled the annoying, fake color artifacts on this image. I am going to remove them, and I use two different methods. First I will show you how I paint them off. Click on the Lens Flare layer to select it and use a black, soft, 100% opacity brush to paint off selective lens flare. I am showing you the layer without my image so it is easy to see the changes I am making. You will be painting directly on your image. This is the finished lens flare layer. I removed the flare in the bottom left corner. I think the image looks so much better now. I decided to turn on the haze layer and set it at 31% to lower the contrast a bit and add haze. You can also adjust the opacity of the lens flare layer. Now I want to show you how I use the Gaussian Blur filter to make the lens flare look more realistic. I want to thank Vanilla Tree Photography for allowing me to use her beautiful image in this tutorial. I ran SunKissed 2 and lowered the orange tones layer's opacity a bit and then added some haze. I clicked on the "lens flare" layer and applied the Gaussian Blur filter to soften the lens flare. Now those annoying flare circles in the bottom left corner are softened and not so fake looking. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on using my newest action. Download CoffeeShop SunKissed 2. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

Today I am excited to release my newest portrait action for Photoshop/PSE. This action is called "Portrait Luxe" and adds beautiful saturated color, skin smoothing, contrast adjustments, vignette, and gorgeous color tints to your outdoor portraits. "Portrait Luxe" is completely adjustable like most of my actions. This is the "before" and "after" image. This beautiful image is from Adina Voicu and you can download the original image here if you want to follow along with my tutorial. CoffeeShop "Portrait Luxe" Photoshop/PSE Action Tutorial: Open your image. This action looks best on outdoor portraits, but you can also run it on other types of images. Start "Portrait Luxe". The first prompt will allow you to soften the skin. Adjust the radius and threshold to taste. You can make further adjustments to this layer after the action finishes running. This is the image after "Portrait Luxe". I usually go in and adjust a few layers. I lowered the "Luxe Skin" layer's opacity a bit. You can also click on the Color Fill box on that layer and tweak the color setting. I also lowered the "Contrast Pop" layer's opacity. I clicked on the "Blue Luxe" layer mask and used a soft black brush to remove the blue tint from her hair and eyes (100%) and skin (50%). I wanted to add more red to the background, so I clicked on the "Red Luxe" layer to open the Levels adjustment, selected Red in the pull-down menubar on top, and then adjusted the mid (gamma) slider under the curve and the Output Level to add some more red to the image. I want "Red Luxe" applied to the background only so I painted most of that layer off her face and skin. Finally I adjusted the "Vignette" layer to taste. I love this edit!!! I would love to see your own before/afters using "Portrait Luxe" on my Facebook page. Download the "Portrait Luxe" Photoshop/PSE Action, here, or in my huge action download pack. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

I am so excited to post my newest Photoshop/PSE tutorial today. I am going to show you how I carve initials on trees/wood digitally. This is a really great technique to use on couple portraits and much better than using a knife to deface a real tree. ;-) When I used to edit photos professionally for wedding/couple photographers I had many requests to do this type of edit. I wanted to add some initials to a tree recently and went back to the bookmarked tutorial I used years ago and the website is gone. I googled like crazy and couldn't find a tutorial that I loved, so I decided to play around and write my own tutorial and post it up here on my blog to share with you. Today I am going to walk you through the edit and tomorrow I will post a free action set called "Magic Tree Carving" so you can automate everything. I love using actions, but I also love showing you what is going on "under the hood" in my actions so you can do your own edits without actions if you want. CoffeeShop Photoshop/PSE Tutorial: Digitally Carving Initials on Trees So You Don't Get Arrested For Defacing Public/Private Property This tutorial is written for middle to advanced users of Photoshop/PSE. If you have questions please post a comment below. And if you are an editing newbie and find this tutorial confusing or want to automate everything, please come back tomorrow and download my Magic Tree Carving action set. This action set make this edit fast and simple for everyone, including newbies!!! For this tutorial I am using this beautiful couple image from B.liss Photography. The first step I do in this type of edit is create a displacement map. You can make and use these displacements maps in both Photoshop and PSE. A displacement map is a grayscale version of an image saved as a Photoshop file. The Displace filter then uses the displacement map essentially as an applied texture. The black areas are the low points and the light areas are the high points of the contours of the original image. This is a great way to make the tree carving blend in to your image so it looks more realistic. 1. Create Displacement Map: Desaturate your image (shift, cmd-Ctrl, U) and then use a levels or curves adjustment to bring out the contrast on the tree bark/wood surface. You want to really bring out the wood texture. Then flatten and save this image as a psd file. 2. Add heart: Revert your image back to the color version. If you want to add a heart you can use one of the free ones I made for you and posted here for download. This heart file is a psd layered file, so just click on the layer that has your favorite heart and click "V" and grab and drag the heart on top of your image. Free-transform (Ctrl-T) it to fit. Add text: You will need to use a bold black font so you can see the words clearly. I like using the Annoying Kettle font. Free-transform the words to fit inside of your heart. Save this version as a psd file (but not over your B&W displacement map!) right now before going on. You might want to go back and make changes later so it is always a good idea to save at this step. Hold Shift and click on both the heart and text layer to select them and then right-click and Merge layers. Then click to select the new merged layer and right-click and Rasterize (or simplify) the layer. Now you have two layers, your background and the text layer with the heart. 3. Add displacement map: Now we will add the displacement map we created on the first step. Click on the top text layer and go to Filter, Disport, Displace. I usually use a horizontal and vertical scale of 5 for lower resolution images and 10 for higher resolution images. I keep the other settings as seen in the screenshot. You will have to play with these settings for your own images. Open the B&W displacement map when prompted. Now the text has texture and looks like it has been incorporated into the wood. You can repeat the filter if you want more effect. If it is overdone you can go back (edit, undo) and lower the horizontal and vertical scale numbers. 4. Add Bevel & Emboss Photoshop: I like to add some Bevel & Emboss to the text so it looks carved in the wood. In Photoshop go to Layer, Layer Style, Bevel & Emboss and add an inner bevel, direction down and set the depth and size to taste. Adjust the Shading if needed. Bevel & Emboss, PSE: In Photoshop Elements go to Layer, Layer Style and click on Bevel and selection Down and set the size to taste. Now it is looking so much better, right? If you want your initials to look carved and painted you can stop here. But if you want this wood/tree carving to look more realistic, I want to show you how to add more texture and change the color to match your image so this looks like it was actually carved into the wood. 5. Add texture and change color: Make two copies of the original image (background) and drag them above your text layer. Group both of these copied layers to the text layer. Then add a color fill layer under the copied layers and grouped with the text layer. You should have three layers grouped to the text layer as seen in the screenshot. The top two add texture and the color fill adjustment layer allows you to customize the color of the carving. I put the top copied layer in overlay mode and the one below that in soft light mode. This adds more texture to your tree carving. You can change the blending mode or adjust the opacity to taste of these two layers. For the final step, adjust the color fill layer (normal mode) to bring out the carving. I usually use a light color from the tree/wood, but you can use any color that looks realistic. Here is my final edit. I love how it turned out! For your own images you will have to play with the setting to get your own perfect edit. And if this tutorial seems too complicated, don't worry. Tomorrow I will release the action set to automate and simplify this edit where even a newbie Photoshop-user can do this on their own! Questions? Please post them below. And I would love to see your after edits using this technique on my Facebook page! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

I am all about fall. It starts getting cooler, the leaves start changing, we haven't had time to get behind in homeschooling, and it is the beginning season of all of my favorite holidays (birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas). It is a gloomy fall day today and I decided it would be fun to create some new fall-inspired textures. These can be used as overlays on images or alone as digital paper. They would make lovely frames or backgrounds for photos. (original image) I am also including two editing tutorials in this post. First, I want to show you how easy it is to create these gorgeous textures using free images from Pixabay. You can download the ones I used to make this set (Leaves 1, Leaves 2, Texture 1, Texture 2, Texture 3) if you want to play along or make your own custom set. It is also very easy to go photograph your own leaves on the ground to use to make these types of textures. The leaves are still green here, so I am using stock photos. Second, I also wrote a mini-tutorial that shows you how I created this stunning owl edit. This is the original owl I used in this tutorial. You can grab the final edit ready for framing or using in your own designs here. CoffeeShop Creating a Vintage Leaf Texture/Digital Paper Tutorial: Create a new file. You can see what settings I used (highlighted in yellow) to get a decent-sized paper. Open your first texture and drag and drop it on top of the blank file. Place the leaf photo on top. Try Soft Light, Overlay, Multiply, or Screen blending mode to see what you like best. In this example I put the leaves layer in Soft Light, 100%. I wanted to mute the color a bit, so I added a Hue/Saturation layer and moved the Saturation slider down to -31. You can also select individual colors and adjust their saturation if needed. Go ahead and add another texture on top of the previous one. I love this cracked concrete image. You can use both textures together or just this one alone. In this edit I didn't combine the two. This time I put the leaves layer in Overlay at 78%. It looks gorgeous! I could go ahead and use the Hue/Saturation layer once again to reduce the color. However, instead of reducing the color I decided to add my own custom color using the Hue/Saturation layer. I checked "Colorize" and then adjusted the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness sliders until I loved the effect. I think this blue is gorgeous. CoffeeShop Using Vintage Leave Textures as Overlays on Images: I love this owl images and knew this texture would look stunning on it! You can download the final edited image here. 1. I added the Leaves 2 Texture in Multiply, 100%. 2. I added a Levels adjustment layer and made no change to the sliders but put it in Screen blending mode, 100%. This lightens up the image. Then I used a black brush on the layer mask to remove the light so that it looks like a ray of light is coming down on the owl. You can look at the layer mask above to see where I painted. 3. Finally, I made a copy of the original image and dragged it on top and put it in Soft Light, 100%. This really makes the owl stand out. I could also add a Hue/Saturation layer on top and reduce the overall color saturation or just the red saturation if needed (or wanted). I hope you have fun with these textures and tutorials! Download the CoffeeShop "Vintage Leaves" Fine Art Textures. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

Today I am posting my newest free action, CoffeeShop "Pink Cashmere". This action is gorgeous on portraits of little girls and still life flowers and is fully adjustable. For this tutorial I used a beautiful images from Jill Wellington (Facebook, Blog). CoffeeShop "Pink Cashmere" Photoshop/PSE action tutorial: Run the action. This is what Jill's image looked like after the action finished. I love the hazy effect, but I will show you how to add back contrast. I turned on the "Recover Highlights" layer to fix the blown-out dress. Then I reduced Haze to 80% and Soft Matte to 60%. Finally, I painted out the dress using a soft black brush on the Soft Matte layer's mask. I hope you enjoy playing with this new action and I would love to see your own before and afters on my Facebook page! Download the CoffeeShop "Pink Cashmere" Photoshop/PSE action. You can also download it here. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

Happy July! Can you believe half of 2014 is over already? Crazy! :eek: :stop: This week while sorting thru my products to retire in SugarHillco's X-mas in July event, I had time to put together a couple of goodies for you. Summerland Damask Papers for personal use & Summerland Glitters for Commercial Use. Love the

With this free glitter overlay, you can add gorgeous golden glitter to your photos -- without the mess! Compatible with Photoshop, Elements, & more.

I am a huge fan of using textures so I always have to have Photoshop or PSE on my computer. Textures can turn a simple photo into art with just a few clicks. Today I wanted to post some custom artistic painterly textures I created in Photoshop. You can use these textures alone as digital paper or layer them over images or other textures. Tutorial on Using the CoffeeShop Artistic Painterly Textures: Textures are very simple to apply to your images. Just open the one you want and drag it on top of your image. Then change the blending mode of the texture to Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Multiply, or Screen and adjust the opacity. Then add a layer mask so that you can erase some of the texture off your main subject (if needed). You can duplicate the layer and even change the blending mode on the copied layer to add more texture. This little bird was such an easy edit. It helps that the original image was stunning. I used the Painterly 3 texture on this image and put it in Hard Light, 100% opacity. Then I used a soft low opacity brush (around 30%) and painted the texture off the bird. You can also change the color of the original texture as seen in the screenshot below. I added the Painterly 4 texture to this image in Hard Light, 86% and painted off some of the texture off the main flowers. But I found the edit too greenish/blue in color. So I added a Hue Saturation layer on top and grouped it to the texture. I kept the setting on Master and moved the Hue slider around until I was happy with the edit. I added a yellowish/red hue and I think it is perfect! Don't ever be afraid to change the colors on a texture. It can really add so much to your image! I have quite a few free textures here. I also love the free textures from ShadowHouse Creations and the gorgeous ones for sale over at Flypaper. Don't be afraid to combine more than one texture on your image. I found this simple flower image over on Pixabay. CoffeeShop Editing Recipe: 1. I added the Painterly Texure 5 from my set here in Hard Light blending mode, 100%. I used a soft black brush on the layer mask to remove the texture off the flowers. 2. I added the Flypaper Cracked Linen 1 texture (from the new Fine Cracks texture pack) in soft light, 100%. 3. I wanted to increase the contrast of the flowers, so I added a Levels adjustment layer just above the background and put it in Multiply blending mode without moving any of the sliders. I love this edit. I hope you enjoy using this new set of textures. Please post your edits over on my Facebook page, I would love to see your work! Download the CoffeeShop Artistic Painterly Texture Pack. You can also download it here. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. More from Rita: Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

There are many ways to create beautiful fine art textures. Many are created by taking a photo of a real texture and then making adjustments in Photoshop. Some amazing examples can be found at Flypaper Textures. Their textures are some of the most gorgeous ones I have ever seen and used. But if you don't have a camera handy, you can still create your own custom textures using Photoshop/PSE and royalty-free stock images on the web. And once you make these textures you can use them in your own work, personally or commercially. Today I wanted to show how you can create your own gorgeous fine art textures using combined images from a free site like Pixabay. These textures can be used as overlays on your images, website/ blog backgrounds, and stunning papers for digital designs and printed goods. I use this method to create many of the textures found on my site, including the "Bohr" set. You can download all of the images I used in this post to work along with me if you want! blue texture, purple texture, hydrangea flowers, blackboard wall) And you can download the pink texture I made in this tutorial at the bottom of this post. CoffeeShop "Designing Custom Fine Art Textures/Overlays Tutorial": Designing the First Texture: I started with this pretty blue textures. You can download all of the textures I used in this post, the links are posted above. I love the left side of this texture, but not the right side. There are several ways to edit this, but I will show you one quick way. Duplicate the texture Ctrl(Cmd)-J. Make sure the top layer is selected and then Free-Transform Ctrl(Cmd)-T it, putting the width in as -100 to flip it horizontally. Add a layer mask to the top layer, click to select it, and then use a feathered (200) Marquee tool to select the dark area on the left side as seen above in the screenshot. Edit, Fill the selection with black. Now both sides are the same. You can make further adjustments using the clone tool or flipping the top texture another way. In this example I Free-Transformed the top texture layer and put in -100 in the height to flip it vertically. Once you are happy with the texture, flatten and desaturate it. Now I will combine this texture with a second one. Adding a Second Texture: This is a pretty texture, very soft and subtle. I desaturated it. And then added the first texture I just made on top of it. And put the top texture in Soft Light Blending mode. You can also use Overlay, Screen, Multiply; it just depends on what effect you want. I then added a Levels adjustment layer and tried out different blending modes to see what I liked. This was Soft Light. This was Multiply. You can also keep the Levels layer in Normal blending mode and adjust the sliders to taste. Playing with the contrast this way allows you to create many versions of the same texture. Coloring The Texture: There are several ways to add color to your texture. The easiest way is adding a Color Fill adjustment layer and trying different blending modes. In this example I added a blue and put that it in Color blending mode. This method works, but the color is flat and uninspiring. To add multidimensional color, use other images to color your texture. I love the colors in this texture, so I added it on top of my image. And put it in Color blending mode. Now I have gorgeous blue-and-green tones. This reminds me of the ocean. You can download this texture in my "Bohr" set. I loved the colors in this hydrangea photo, so I used it to color the texture by adding it on top. It is best to Gaussian Blur these types of images. You want to blur it enough so the color transitions are smooth, but not so much that it becomes one combined color. After blurring it, I put it in Color blending mode. In this version the Levels adjustment layer below is in Multiply. I wanted a lighter version, so I put the Levels layer in Screen. This is one of my favorites and you can download it here! I used the pink texture on this rose image in Soft Light, 2 copies. I LOVE it! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and start creating your own custom textures. Do you want to download thousands of professional CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop actions (including exclusive ones not found anywhere for free), textures/overlays, scrapbooking papers, clip art/design elements, photo storyboards and frames, and Lightroom presets from this site in one convenient zipped file AND help support this one-woman blog? Just click here for my CoffeeShop Mega Download Pack!

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! We have been having so much fun because all of the neighborhood kids are off from school and have plenty of time to play outside. I can't even count how many Nerf wars we have had in our neighborhood yards. I LOVE these homeschooling breaks as I have so much extra time to read. These last two weeks I can really appreciate why many of my mom friends send their kids happily off to school. ;-) I also have a sale going on for custom blog/website designs. If you want a new photography blog/website, family blog, craft blog, etc. for the new year, I would love to design one for you! Today I wanted to post my newest action, CoffeeShop Peachy Matte. This action adds color and an adjustable matte effect. If you are a PSE user this is an especially useful action as you can use Photoshop's curves adjustment that is usually "locked" in your program. CoffeeShop Peachy Matte Action Tutorial: Open your image. I love this effect on outdoor portraits. Start the action. When the Curves prompt comes up, you can click OK to accept or adjust the dot (circled in the screenshot above) to customize the Matte Effect. If you move it up you can reduce the contrast, and if you move it out to the right you can darken the shadows. This type of adjustment adds a subtle "matte-film" effect to your image. When the action finishes you can adjust the opacity or blending mode of the Peachy layer and adjust the opacity of the Matte layer. I love what this action does to skin. I hope you enjoy using Peachy Matte! Download the free CoffeeShop Peachy Matte action. You can also download it here. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions (including this one!) and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

I have so many actions available now that I often get overwhelmed trying to figure out which one to use on an edit. I am sure you have the same problem, so every week I am going to put up a tutorial using some of my past actions. Today I am editing this gorgeous portrait using the CoffeeShop "2 Minute Miracle Plus" and "Aphrodite" actions. You can download both free actions on the posts and also find step-by-step instructions on applying them to your image. I also have a special action/preset download pack where you can get all of my favorite actions/presets in one simple download (hundreds of actions plus some bonus ones not found here on my site!) and help support my blog. 1. This is my starting image. You can download it here (and check out Lisa's other free images). 2. Adjusting Contrast: I started by adding a Levels adjustment layer and lightening the midtowns and highlights by moving their sliders to the left. This caused some hot spots (blown-out areas) on her nose and upper forehead. I used a soft black low opacity brush and clicked to select the layer mask and painted some of that layer off her nose and forehead. Then I noticed her eyes and lower left part of her face has some shadows that I want to soften. 3. Soften Shadows: I added a Levels adjustment layer and put it in screen mode. It has completely blown out the image but don't worry. I clicked on its layer mask and filled it with black. Then I used a soft white low opacity brush and carefully painted over areas where I wanted to remove shadows and improve the overall lighting. 4. 2 Minute Miracle Plus Action: I ran my "2 Miracle Miracle Plus" action. I edited the eyes using Eye Define, Bright Eyes, and White Whites. I was happy with the Smooth Skin layer so I left it alone, and I dialed up Boost to 64%. 5. Aphrodite Action: I finished up my edit by running my "Aphrodite" action. This is one of my absolute favorite actions to run on portraits. After the action finished I only made one change. I turned on the Contrast Boost layer, brought it up to 80% opacity, and then used a soft black 100% opacity brush and painted over her face. This is a nifty way to burn in the background. Quite a difference, right? Never be afraid to combine actions. And your own edits can be very subtle or dramatic like the image I edited here. Have fun and create your own photo art! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

Freebies and Tutorials for Photographers and Digital Designers for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom.

If you are new to my blog, welcome!!! The CoffeeShop Blog is a one-woman-owned business (by me, Rita!) and I create all of the tutorials and freebies posted here. If you want to grab hundreds of my Photoshop/PSE actions (including exclusive sets not found here on my blog), Lightroom Presets, and professional digital designs (including all of my favorite holiday sets) in a single download AND help support my site please check out my CoffeeShop Download Pack. Thanks to you The CoffeeShop Blog is possible. I have well over 200 free actions posted here on my blog, and some of my favorite ones are the retouching ones. I wrote CoffeeShop Eye Bright in March 2009, but I honestly haven't seen any reason to update it. I realize I just had a short tutorial on the original post, so I decided to revisit Eye Bright and how to use it. If you don't have CoffeeShop Eye Bright yet, just click here to download it and then follow the tutorial in this post. You must understand how to use layer masks to use this action, so please go read my Layer Mask tutorial and if you have PSE8 or below you might want to download my free layer mask action. You don't need to add your own layer masks to use this action (they are built in), but once you start using layer masks you won't want to stop. Remember, this is the way I usually edit using this action, but you might find a way that you think works better! 1. Open your image and run CoffeeShop Eye Bright. You will have four layers but your image will be unchanged. I have so many people email me and ask why there is no change on their image after they run this action. This action needs user input to get stunning and realistic results. The Eye Define layer mask is already selected. Black masks "mask" any change. 2. Zoom in the eyes. 3. Click "B" to select your brush, then "D" for default black foreground and white background, and then "X" to make your foreground color white. Your brush has to be white to edit all of these layers! Make your brush soft, make sure it is in normal mode, and put the opacity at 100% for this step. 4. I like to make it easy to see where I am editing, so I click Alt-Shift while clicking on my black layer mask in the Eye Define layer. Now my entire image is red, which allows me to see where I am painting in the image. You can also click on the backslash \ key to get the same effect. 5. Now I take my brush which I adjusted in Step 3 and paint over the iris in each eye. Wherever I paint on the image I remove the red, which means I am defining that part of the eye. If you go over the whites, just click "X" to make your brush black and repaint over the part you want to remove. 6. Then I usually bring the opacity down to 50% or so and paint over the eyelashes and eyebrows. Make sure you don't paint on the edges of the bottom of the eye just above the bottom eye lashes. This can make the eyes look really odd. And remember, as long as you are holding your mouse down when you paint, the opacity will continue to be 50% even if you repaint over an area. 7. Shift-Alt to remove the red mask and then click on the White Whites' black layer mask. Click Shift-Alt to turn on the red mask again. Then make sure your brush is white and set to around 50% and paint over the whites of the eye. Be careful to not paint on the black part of the iris or the skin around the eye. You can see below I painted over the bottom part of the iris, so I changed to a black brush and painted the iris out. Shift-Alt to remove the red mask when you are done. 8. Click on the Bright Eyes layer. Use a white brush at 100% opacity to paint over the color parts of the eye. Make sure to avoid any areas that are black. 9. Now, this is probably the most important part of the eye editing process. We have all seen retouching gone wild in photography, where children or adults look like plastic space aliens... So be sure to zoom out and examine your eyes and make sure they look normal. In this case, I think we need to do some final adjustments. 10. I usually don't do anything to the Eye Define layer, but I always bring down the opacity of the Bright Eyes and White Whites layers. You can see my final setting below. 11. I still think the eyes are a bit overdone, but I could go back and play with the settings again. This simple little action can really enhance the eyes in your portraits. If you want to do a complete retouching job with these Eye Bright and auto skin smoothing, etc., please go download my free CoffeeShop Perfect Portrait 3 action. I have so many other retouching actions, and you can find them all on this page (go down a bit) or download my most popular ones in one simple download and help support this blog here. I also have a new action coming out that has Eye Bright and the auto skin smoothing from Perfect Portrait 3. Once I figure out a name I will post it here. I posted a sample before/after below, and that edit took maybe 2 minutes. This action is perfect to use on an already edited portrait that just needs some simple retouching. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

Today I am posting my newest free Photoshop/PSE Action, CoffeeShop Auburn Matte. This action is completely adjustable and can be run on pretty much anything, including portraits and landscapes. I wanted to thank Royal Harrision Photography for allowing me to use this beautiful image in this post. After I ran the action I painted out her eyes with a 50% black brush to add back some of the blue, but other than that I made no other adjustments. Here is another image with Auburn Matte applied. I think it is really beautiful on landscapes with a lot of green and brown in them. Download the free CoffeeShop Auburn Matte action. You can also download it here. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

I love adding artistic light effects to my images and I wanted to show you one technique I use to create my custom "Confetti" overlays. I have already posted a "Confetti Lights" action that automatically creates three of my favorite Confetti Lights overlays on your image, but I wanted to show you how I create them so you can make your own custom light overlays. I am posting a step-by-step tutorial below and I also created a set of three "Confetti Lights" overlays that you can download at the bottom of this post. And if you subscribe to Jill Wellington's and my free CoffeeShop Newsletter (sign-up on the side of this post) you will receive a pack of additional free custom Confetti overlays first thing Monday morning and a fun new tutorial on how I use them. The other day I was playing around on the computer trying to figure out how to add colored light effects in Photoshop and PSE and I came upon this really easy method that I haven't seen anywhere else. I hope you enjoy this tutorial on how to create your own overlays. CoffeeShop "Confetti Lights" Overlay Tutorial for Photoshop and PSE: Open your image. I used a beautiful portrait from Jill. Add a new layer above the image. Select the colors you want to use for your Confetti Lights overlay by clicking on your foreground and background colors. I used blue (I selected her hat color and made it a bit darker) and black. It doesn't matter which is foreground and which is background. Then go to Filter, Render, Clouds. This is what the overlay looks like. Put this layer in Screen, Soft Light, or Overlay blending mode. I used Screen here. Add a layer mask and use a soft black brush to paint the Confetti Lights layer off skin, hair and clothing. Then adjust then opacity to taste. The black areas on your overlay won't affect your image in Screen blending mode, only the blue lights will be obvious. In this image I used Soft Light blending mode for more contrast. This is subtle but really pretty. You can see that the black areas on your overlay darken the image in Soft Light Mode. You can also use white or gray as your neutral color. I created this overlay with blue and white. This is Screen blending mode and you can see that the white area of the overlay really lightens everything. This can create a beautiful fantasy effect. If you use Soft Light the contrast is not affected by the white area and you only see the blue lights. Now I am going to show you two ways to combine the overlays to get a multi-colored confetti effect! Confetti Lights Using Several Overlays: First Method: You can add as many of these cloud overlays as you want and you can use two vivid colors rather than a color and a neutral like black or white. In this sample I made two new layers. I added a green and blue cloud filter to the top one and pink and purple to the bottom one. I put both of these layers in Screen blending mode and put the top one at 76% and the bottom one at 66% and masked out the young woman in both. You can completely customize this effect and go as dramatic or subtle as you wish. Second Method: You can go all out and create a beautiful custom overlay and even save it as a jpg texture to apply on any of your images. This method is really helpful as you can see how each color layer affects your image and you can turn on/off layers until you have your perfect Confetti Lights. Open your image and add a new blank layer. Click on the color picker and make your foreground dark purple and your background black. Then go to Filter, Render, Clouds. This is what it looks like. Put this layer in Screen blending mode. Make a new layer on top and change your foreground color dark blue and leave the background black and run the Cloud filter again. Put this layer in Screen blending mode. Now you see the combined light overlays. This is lovely but I am going to add one more color. Keep on adding these layers until you love the effect. I added one additional overlay. Make a new layer and change your foreground color to gold and leave your background black and apply the Cloud filter. Put this final layer in Screen blending mode. I love this one! Now we will group them together so we can add a layer mask and remove the lights overlay from the beautiful young woman. Photoshop Users: Select all three layers and group them. PSE Users: Select all three layers (click on the top, hold shift, then click on the bottom one) and right click and select "Merge Layers". This is the final overlay. Pretty!!! Because I used black as one of the colors this overlay will look great in Screen mode. You can actually flatten and save this overlay as a jpg or png to use on other images if you want. But I am going to apply it right now to the image. Put the Confetti Lights overlay in Screen blending mode, add a layer mask, and paint out the lights on your portrait using a soft black brush at 50-100% opacity. I used 100% on her skin/hair and 50% on her hat. Try Soft Light blending mode also. This is really pretty as it adds more contrast and less haze and is a bit more subtle. I hope you enjoy this new tutorial and I would love to see your results on my Facebook page! Download the free CoffeeShop "Confetti Lights" overlay set. You can also download it here. Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures.

So how is it going in your part of the world? It is finally cooling down here in Texas and hurricane season should be over!!! I really feel for Louisiana. They got hit by many hurricanes that were thought to be coming to my neck of the woods before the hurricanes turned. I love living close to the coast, except during hurricane season. Then I want to move to Montana. Supposedly this is the last week of days in the 90's. It is still very green here since the trees, grass, and flowers haven't received their fall memo, but the days are getting shorter. Bring it on! I am so over summer at this point. I have had such fun designing new fine art textures for you today. These are all made from actual art pieces from the open access online art generously offered by the Cleveland Museum of Art using the magic of Photoshop tools and brushes. You can check out the original pieces here: (1, 2, 3, 4). Layer these over photos (in soft light, overlay, multiply, or screen) or use them as digital papers to create your own art. I even like combining them as I did in the yellow flower image below. These come with free commercial terms-of-use, so use them anyway you want, just don't resell them "as is". Keep them free!!! Images used in this post: (1, 2, 3, 4). Download the CoffeeShop "Cleveland Museum of Art" Fine Art Texture Pack! Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for all the actions/presets and professional design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here. More from Rita: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter