Sometimes you want your photographs to look a little different, a little more awesome. There are so many actions for Adobe Photoshop that claim to add cool effects to your photos; let's put one to the test!
In this tutorial, we'll take you through how to use one of the actions available from Envato Elements, where you can download unlimited resources for a monthly subscription.
Elementum — Dispersion Photoshop Action
1. Get Everything Ready
There are a few things you need to do before you get started with this action. First up, you need to install the action into Photoshop.
Make sure your image is a high resolution one. If it's not, the action will still work but the results might not be as good. Your image also needs to be in RGB mode and it should be 8 bit, both of which you can find under Image in the Photoshop menu.
Make sure your image is the only layer you have opened and the layer should be (automatically) named 'background'.
This is the sample image I'll be using to demonstrate the action's effects. You can follow along with the same image, which is by Havilah Galaxy on Unsplash.
2. Run the Action
Create a new layer and call it mask, and using a hard brush on your mask layer, use any colour to brush over your photo where you want the action to apply.
There are four directional options, but because of the nature of the picture and the fact that the subject is jumping up, I'm going to select up.
Press play and then wait for the action to do it's thing. It takes a little while.
3. Perfect the Look
The action is broken down into groups: Colour Presets, Parts Motion, Parts Static and Object Motion.
Let’s go through these.
Colour Presets
The colour presets with the eye next to them are ones that you can see already applied to the photo; the ones that aren’t are options to add later, if you choose. You might not want to apply more than one of the photo filters, but you can, and because of this you can experiment with different effects. Here, I’ve applied the cooler, blue filters.
Parts Motion
As you’d expect, this refers to the particles on the image that look as if they’re moving—the blurred ones. If I hide the ‘static parts’, which we’ll come to shortly, you can see which this group refers to:
Each layer is marked as visible, but if you have any that
are in places you’d rather they weren’t, then this is a good time to hide
those or apply a layer mask and brush out the ones you don’t want. The ones on
my example look pretty good so I’m going to leave them all as they are.
Parts Static
These are the rest of your particles, so if I hide the ‘motion’ ones, this is what’s left
The particles here have no blur effect and so they look ‘static’. Again, this is a good time to mask out any that don’t fit your image or to hide the appropriate layers.
Object Motion
Finally we have the Object Motion group. If I hide the particles you can see that this is the slight blur around the subject that was painted over.
The blur is moving upwards because of the direction I selected at the start. The layers are all visible, but the first one is masked a little. Hiding that will increase the effect of the blur.
If you have a large subject in your photo, you might not want that, but as the subject in my example is quite small, I think an increase in that effect works, so I’ve hidden the layer.
Finished Effect
This is a pretty cool effect, I think, and although you do have the option to change it up by adjusting layers once the action has run, it doesn't need that, so it can be quick and simple, or a little more flexible depending on your desired effect.
Before and After
Try the Action With Different Images
Here's another photograph with a different kind of subject. Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash.
This time, instead of painting the subject, try painting the background instead.
This time, we'll try the down direction, as it's raining and also remove some of the static parts. Finally, add some of the photo filters for a warmer more saturated look.
Before and After
And More...
You can also duplicate the layers or groups to build up the effect. In this version, I've duplicated both the static and motion part groups and moved them slightly so they're not over the top of each other.
This would be a great effect to try with fun family photos.
More Cool Effects for Photoshop
