How to Transform Movie Style Photo Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will learn how to edit a photo to give it a movie look.

For this we will learn how to change the photo levels and the color curves to create some attractive movie-like effects. Also how to retouch some photo imperfections like moles, stinks, noise, etc. with some easy-to-use tools.

Final Result :

How to Transform Movie Style Photo Effect in Photoshop

How to Transform Movie Style Photo Effect in Photoshop

We will use this image to create the movie effect.

photo-effect

Gun woman strikes back Via ShutterStock

Step 1

We will start removing some imperfections in the photo. For that we’ll use the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

01Choose a small brush. You can change the brush properties with right click over the photo while the Spot Healing Brush Tool is selected. In this case we could use a 12px brush with a 20-30% hardness.
Use the brush to paint over some white points in the girl’s shirt and some dark points over the shorts. You can also remove some moles.

You can notice how the white points on the left image have disappeared. The image on the right shows the result after the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

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Step 2

Remove some dots on the legs.

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For that we’re going to use the Blur Tool.

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On top of the screen you can set the strength. Set it to 60%.

You could use a 30px size brush.

Paint carefully over the places with dots.

Here’s the result:

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Step 3

Adjust the photo levels. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels.

This will help us to increase the contrast of the image, by moving the black and white handles.

This is the configuration I made, but you can select the contrast you would like to add to the photo.

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Step 4

Adjust the color curves of the image. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. Add a name for the new Curves layer and click OK.

Change the adjustment from RGB to Red using the drop-down menyu as seen on the image.

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For the Red curves we will use the following configuration creating two points:

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For the Green curves:

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And finally for the blue curve:

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Don’t change the RGB curve.

Step 5

Now let’s change the color eyes. For this you will have to create a new layer. Be sure to create this new layer below the curves layer we just created.

Using the Brush Tool (B) paint over the iris of the eyes using a light color. I used #3690a7.

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Now change the layer’s blending mode to Overlay. This should be the result:

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The final result:

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You can use this effect with many other pictures and you could set the contrast, levels and curves in many ways to obtain different results.


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3 Comments

  1. Repo says:

    The biggest impression in changes is eye color. And a little of background wall. But I still like the the pic you chose 😀

  2. stu says:

    the changes are that small they are barely noticeable!