Corey shows how to use the luminosity of an image to create a cool design effect and spice up your simple photos.

113 Comments

1. Phillip Anthony Briles said on — May 23, 2008 @ 9:54 am

   Another winner!

   I have always liked the versatility of the Gradient tool but thought I had outgrown it. Man, was I wrong. I was not aware of the Noise feature of that tool. I should have known.

   Once again, you have opened another creative door for us.

   Thank you very much for the Ps enlightenment. Your tuts are always outstanding.

2. David O'Hara said on — May 23, 2008 @ 10:09 am

   Another amazing tutorial! I really like the finished effect with this one. Looks really good. It’s something that say for example you saw on the back of a poster you would look at for a while. It really attracts the audience.

   Another great tutorial.

   Thanks a million
   David

3. sharpless... said on — May 23, 2008 @ 1:01 pm

   good tutorial.

   but what is the option key?

4. Matt Tuley said on — May 23, 2008 @ 3:06 pm

   @sharpless Mac Option = Windows Alt. Usually.

5. Jessie said on — May 24, 2008 @ 6:21 am

   cool totural how do i download it !!!

6. Me said on — May 24, 2008 @ 10:04 am

   Hey there!

   Nice turtorial, only I don’t get one thing.
   On a certain moment you make a new channel, alpha 1.
   That’s a black page, you can only see your selection.
   I don’t get how you make that page coloured.
   The video sais that you have to press ctrl+BackSpace, but when I do that my selection gets white. Can somebody help me?

   P.S I hope my english isn’t too bad..

7. Texas Cory Fan said on — May 24, 2008 @ 10:19 am

   Beautiful !! Cory’s tutorials are the best – always a 10 plus (scale of 1 to10).

8. IsmetM said on — May 24, 2008 @ 5:28 pm

   Excellent technique. Thanks!

9. Ash said on — May 24, 2008 @ 6:58 pm

   This site has taught me more than my college. lol

10. Silent said on — May 24, 2008 @ 9:47 pm

    Great tutorials… easy to follow with and learn. Looking forward for the next ones.

    Thanks much.

11. Gaby Bucur said on — May 25, 2008 @ 2:23 am

    great tutorial as always Corey…

    @sharpless… the ‘option key’ on MAC…is the ‘Alt key’ on the PC

12. thuhientnk said on — May 25, 2008 @ 2:43 am

    thanks

13. Bob Murray said on — May 25, 2008 @ 8:15 am

    Sharpless, you must be on a PC. The option key on a Mac is the equivalent of your Alt key on the PC.

    p.s. – Rock on, Corey!

14. Velimirius said on — May 25, 2008 @ 11:10 am

    awsome.THX

15. John said on — May 25, 2008 @ 12:21 pm

    Excellent Tutuorial… Love this one…:)

16. Lukas said on — May 26, 2008 @ 7:17 am

    Why do instructors still create a layer and fill with white instead of adding an adjustment layer with solid colour, white?
    Would have just loaded selection and created a solid colour or gradient layer… gives even more flexibility/editability even after saving.

17. Riqfx said on — May 26, 2008 @ 10:07 pm

    This is absolutely slick and amazing! Good job CB.

18. Arnel said on — May 27, 2008 @ 1:42 am

    thank you for this tutorial but please put some sentence or a paragraph for your explanation not only the video tutorial, however thank a lot

19. Michèle said on — May 29, 2008 @ 11:01 am

    Hello
    I’m a French woman. Sorry I don’t speak English very well.
    Your tutorials are very interesting but I don’t understand
    when you speak (very quickly !)
    It’s difficult to me to realise this effect.
    is it possible to have your tutorials in pdf ?
    I learn English more easily
    Thank you

20. Melanie said on — May 30, 2008 @ 1:35 pm

    Great tutorial, thank you for putting it together, though I must agree with Michelle that it would be nice to be able to download this to try it again sometime.

21. Trell said on — May 30, 2008 @ 4:03 pm

    hey i like how u did them pictures its hard but im learning its gona take me awhile to get it

22. NICKI said on — May 31, 2008 @ 10:34 am

    great tuts but way to fast and if you not using mac you get left behind veru frustrating. seems like you preaching to the converted

23. Abhimanyu said on — June 2, 2008 @ 7:51 am

    Gr8 dude
    amazing ur da god of photoshop

24. Márcio Guerra said on — June 3, 2008 @ 12:53 pm

    I am tired of saying good tutorial, but… it is!
    Keep rockin’…

    Márcio Guerra

25. NAGUIB said on — June 3, 2008 @ 5:05 pm

    THIS IS REALLY VERY COOL AND USEFUL

26. William Ogunsina said on — June 4, 2008 @ 9:48 am

    This Took Me Ages, But I Finally Did It, Im New To Photoshop, Ive Been Using PhotoImpact As You Can See From My Website, But Im Happy I Have PhotoShop, The Effect Are Brilliant, Thanks Corey

27. Andre said on — June 5, 2008 @ 12:43 pm

    Thanks for the great tutorial. This is what I came up with messing around. You are always an inspiration Corey!

    http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g82/shootn3zz/AMG%20Productions/DSC02215.jpg

28. robby said on — June 5, 2008 @ 1:02 pm

    wow man, great tutorial, I’m a total noob in PS but thanks to you I managed to get trough this tutorial.
    great effect btw

29. Riya said on — June 5, 2008 @ 1:29 pm

    AWESOME!!! Another great tutorial as always.

30. sjoerd said on — June 5, 2008 @ 2:46 pm

    hello,
    its great! I like to do it. but there is only one queastion.
    Where can I find that picture? so if I got that one I can try to get it as nice as you do it. Because i can’t find a picture like that one. If you coud tel me where I can find that one or one that are all most the same I would like that!.

    I allready thank you, and like your workshops verry much!

    Your faitfully,
    Sjoerd Blankhorst

31. David said on — June 9, 2008 @ 12:20 pm

    Where can I find that image so I can copy what you are doing?

    Thanks

32. Steve said on — June 11, 2008 @ 9:13 am

    sharpless, the option key is alt on a PC, where command is cntrl and delete is backspace.

33. stephanie said on — June 12, 2008 @ 12:20 am

    I have a question, When I go to put the gradient on at the end on the locked layer it won’t allow me because it is locked, what do I do?

34. Evan said on — June 14, 2008 @ 12:33 pm

    can this be done using photoshop elements

35. srk said on — June 15, 2008 @ 6:55 pm

    Seriously, I’m deaf. I cannot understand this, and I really want to learn this thing. If it was in writing with pictures, then I would easily learn this.

36. Naresh said on — July 19, 2008 @ 2:23 am

    I could not understand what did u do to the alpha channel which changed suddenly into the image & how did u get that darkness in that alpha channel

    please reply

37. Jamie said on — July 19, 2008 @ 7:08 pm

    Brilliant tutorial again
    this is what i made with it
    http://www.bebo.com/PhotoAlbumBig.jsp?MemberId=4144047329&PhotoAlbumId=4567298055&PhotoId=8374063981
    if you rasterize the text layer at the end and then lock the transparity
    you can continue the gradient from the picture over to the text
    just an extra that i think looks kl

38. Angel Oropeza said on — July 22, 2008 @ 10:22 am

    THAT WAS GOOD
    THANK YOU 4 SHARE YOUR WORK

39. Karan said on — July 23, 2008 @ 4:54 pm

    You make the best tutorials so far you are the only person the I can understand!

40. zriyan-rawanduzi said on — August 3, 2008 @ 10:31 am

    thank you

41. Kenji said on — August 6, 2008 @ 7:30 pm

    I really love the tutorials here. Learn a lot a cool spanky stuff than the books I bought!
    Sometimes I am off the internet so a hardcopy will be fabulous.
    But is there a compilation of your tutorials like an e-book or book we can buy?

    Regards,
    Kenji K

42. Kir said on — August 9, 2008 @ 1:37 am

    Very good site! I like it! Thanks! . [URL=http://my-test-doorway.myhost.com].[/URL]

43. Ashley D said on — August 12, 2008 @ 10:20 am

    hey once i get the hang of this tutorial i will right one for windows of this verison

44. Ashley D said on — August 12, 2008 @ 10:29 am

    help I am having trouble with the last step i can get the image on the blank layer

45. Ashley D said on — August 12, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

    http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b276/limeslushie2010/?action=view&current=katy_08_imagecopy.jpg

46. Justin said on — August 18, 2008 @ 10:17 pm

    Hey Corey i have been following ur tutorials, and i think im doin preaty good…. ur tutorials are awsome and easy to follow and have helped me do diffrent things

    http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa132/Moffeia/Briana3copy.jpg

    http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa132/Moffeia/Rachcopy.jpg

47. AHMAD said on — September 26, 2008 @ 3:38 am

    I”m new in photoshop but I would like to say ur video tutorial is easy to follow . This is the one I”m looking for.

48. =) said on — September 30, 2008 @ 7:57 am

    how come i cant do the gradient? it said there cannot edit it because the layer is locked? but it said in this tutorial to locked the layer. pls help me .. im using cs3 extended. tanx a lot

49. Taslim Ahmed said on — October 7, 2008 @ 8:55 am

    Best tutorials so far I see, it’s grate, I did learn a lot and get some more ideas from it.
    Thank you
    - Taslim Ahmed

50. Emanuel said on — October 7, 2008 @ 5:23 pm

    FANTASTIC !!!!

51. Sma said on — October 12, 2008 @ 1:48 am

    Thank you for a great tutorial, I will have to have a look at your others now.
    I did get confused like the poster above, I locked all layers instead of the transparency but I realised my mistake after I backtracked and looked a little harder at your screen.

    I altered one of my own portraits for fun
    http://www.smatography.com/pics/uploads/1223793886208.jpg

    Very neat little trick, thanks!

52. maneesh said on — October 14, 2008 @ 2:08 pm

    good class……….. thanks………

53. celsius said on — October 17, 2008 @ 11:11 am

    gradient noise! damn, photoshop hides some sweetness deep inside.

54. levi said on — October 20, 2008 @ 6:15 pm

    great!
    thanks!

55. G$$ said on — October 23, 2008 @ 12:57 am

    Great tutorial!! For some reason when its time to use the paint brush to paint over the hair white, I can never do it. It barely lightens the hair and doesn’t color white like it does on the video. Am I doing something wrong?

56. Creative eCommerce said on — October 31, 2008 @ 1:51 pm

    This simple tutorial has clued me in to some features I didn’t know about. I would like to use some of your content on one of my new sites with a link to your site. I am somewhat new to this blogging thing though.

57. nxpimagine said on — November 1, 2008 @ 1:14 am

    Not very bad for beginners. I knew it all along but tried it out.

58. Krishnendu said on — November 7, 2008 @ 3:26 am

    Just terrific. I respect your expertise. Hats off to you.

    Regards,

    Krish

59. Qutub said on — November 7, 2008 @ 9:09 am

    Cool!

    May i add your link to resources section in http://www.vectorpeople.com

60. nathan said on — November 12, 2008 @ 9:29 am

    WOW!!!!!!! thats a great tip i all ways wondered what to use the gradient noise for

61. yokimashu said on — November 20, 2008 @ 8:41 am

    Very Nice! I learned so much from the tutorial!

62. Axel said on — December 30, 2008 @ 12:44 am

    Thanks ALOT! This vid really helped me, and opened new doors to my designs. Great vid, Great Quality.
    5/5

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    [...] Design Effects | Effects Photography Tools Tutorials Videos | Planet Photoshop – [...]

64. Flo said on — January 5, 2009 @ 1:01 pm

    hey,what a great tutorial (all the other tutorials are also great on this site)!

    i tryed it a couple of times and with every try a better result apears.a little variation of the gradient or solid color filling is to ad a picture to it and use the “person” as a clipping mask. try it!

    and corey: pleas go on like this,it´s great,i love your tutorials

65. Pratik said on — January 5, 2009 @ 5:22 pm

    Amazing ….very infirmative!!!

66. lena said on — January 7, 2009 @ 8:13 pm

    This is an awesome effect!!
    I’m doing this on Photoshop CS3 and the trouble is when i press ctrl+backspace nothing happens to Alpha 1! so what am i doing wrong?
    oh and please can you release a .pdf document to download? so i can try this again later.

    thanks.

67. Kristen said on — January 22, 2009 @ 1:20 pm

    This is fantastic!

68. Bethanie said on — February 3, 2009 @ 10:16 pm

    Oh wow! That is inspiring! I’m going to play with Photoshop now.
    This is much incouragement on my profile to be a graphic designer.
    Thank you!

69. msp said on — February 11, 2009 @ 4:18 am

    Hello Corey!

    I wanted to step in and say thank you for all these awesome tutorials.

    Great work you’re really a PS God keep it up!

70. Jiffrey Mohamed said on — February 13, 2009 @ 1:16 pm

    Hat’s off Corey!
    This is great. Your tutorials are very easy to undersatand and execute.
    Cheers!

71. Beginner said on — February 17, 2009 @ 10:47 pm

    Hi, Corey! Absolutely love your tutorials…I’m finding them very informative and easy to follow. Unfortunately the Design Effects video keeps cutting out for me just as you start to talk about gradients. Not sure what the problem is there…but I would love to be able to view the rest of the tutorial if possible. Thanks again.

72. Nikiat T said on — February 19, 2009 @ 10:03 pm

    You have no clues this was a blessing …….. tryin this effect for more than a week….. n goin though sum 500 tuto …… u have made my day…… Kool tuto…easy to understand…n work VOLLA!!!!!

73. Tom Bruno said on — February 25, 2009 @ 10:25 pm

    Very, very cool. Corey, you are the master. Your tutorials are brilliant for many reasons, not the least of which is that they LOOK good. You are an artist, not just a technician. Thank you so much for this and all your other excellent instruction.

    I had one snag which maybe someone can answer. When painting white onto the alpha channel, if I went too far with the brush I don’t know how to reverse that. Pressing Ctrl-Z only reverses the brush stroke. Is there a way to refine the selection, as in a layer mask, painting over the excess with a brush?

    Cheers and regards.

74. sam said on — March 7, 2009 @ 8:10 pm

    hey , can you send me the orginal photo of this one as well please?

75. professional photo retouching said on — March 19, 2009 @ 3:41 pm

    Still by far my favourite tutorial website on the planet! I use your ideas every day while I am doing my photo retouching

76. Art said on — March 22, 2009 @ 4:07 pm

    Superb Man its awesome !!

77. Cristina said on — March 24, 2009 @ 5:33 pm

    you…are…amazing.

78. guillermo giannini rodriguez said on — April 2, 2009 @ 2:47 pm

    great, thank you

79. xea said on — April 3, 2009 @ 11:53 am

    Thanks, nice Tutorial;)

80. BiggTimm said on — April 7, 2009 @ 8:21 pm

    I love this!! I saw this effect on a recent Vibe magazine with Keyshia Cole (an R&B singer) on the cover and wanted to replicate it using my daughter’s photo.

81. Joey said on — April 7, 2009 @ 10:58 pm

    That was tight…thanks

82. kayode said on — April 22, 2009 @ 11:12 am

    GOOD DAY. I REALLY LIKE THIS TUTORIAL BUT I CAN HAVE IT IN WRITING SO THAT I CAN UNDERSTAND IT BETTER. THANKS

83. Ang said on — May 10, 2009 @ 9:04 pm

    Love the “noise” options for gradients… who knew?! Thanks!

84. khanh said on — May 13, 2009 @ 6:01 am

    thank a lot

85. ricky said on — May 13, 2009 @ 7:01 am

    nice tutorials..
    very usefull
    nice gradient effects
    ..thanks

86. Aviz said on — May 23, 2009 @ 12:36 pm

    Hey! what’s with the add… I coudn’t finish this tutorial either?!

87. akrchstn said on — May 23, 2009 @ 10:43 pm

    Whenever I select something and I’m about to move on to another step that stuff wont unselect…how do I go about doing this

88. peach said on — May 26, 2009 @ 12:41 am

    wow! i learned how to do that just from watching this video once =]
    thanks a lot for this quality technique

89. pencilartist said on — May 30, 2009 @ 9:51 am

    This is my first time to visit your site and view the video clip. GREAT!
    Love the way you demonstrated and your knowledge of what to try.
    Thanks

90. Corey Barker said on — June 1, 2009 @ 10:26 am

    You open the Channels panel and hold down the Ctrl key, ( Command on Mac) then click the RGB channel. This will load
    the luminosity of the image as a selection.

91. FilzFotoShop said on — June 3, 2009 @ 10:19 am

    Thank you!!!
    You have shown me a much easier way white out my images!!!
    Awesome show Mate!!

92. JJ said on — June 3, 2009 @ 12:37 pm

    Looks good, but one problem…I do not understand what you’re saying cos I’m hearing impaired so how would someone like me understand you and really want to learn this without knowing?

93. Week #6 Photo Edits — Luminosity Trick « Jamie.Merrill Custom.Images Pingback on — June 4, 2009 @ 1:33 pm

    [...] I had a lot of fun with this luminosity trick. I did not take these photos, I found them on stock exchange (sxc.hu). All of the photos of my own that I was trying to get to work did not have the right kind of lighting to really make the effect what I wanted it to be, so I found these ones and they worked perfectly! The tutorial can be found at http://www.planetphotoshop.com/design-effects-2.html [...]

94. Damien Darke said on — June 11, 2009 @ 11:05 pm

    This was fun… and so easy to do .. thanks for the tutorial

95. shravan said on — June 25, 2009 @ 6:24 pm

    Thanks for the tutorial and showing some incredible technique

96. dizzy rizzy said on — June 26, 2009 @ 9:59 am

    Boy is this going to be a great to see how others like it. Never would have seen this except for facebook link. May have to rethink my podcast downloads.

97. Alex said on — June 30, 2009 @ 2:39 am

    very cool technique- if anyone’s seen the cover for John Lennon’s Campaign to Save Darfur, the same technique is used on that. i’d always thought it was pretty neat.

98. Juliet said on — June 30, 2009 @ 9:18 am

    Super Duper thank you!!

99. kate said on — July 2, 2009 @ 1:20 pm

    Thank you!!! Really easy and cool!

100. MaRcOS said on — July 5, 2009 @ 5:53 am

     Ur the man mate…..you are not just a good designer you are really good teacher…thanks for all your tutorial mate…more power…just wanna ask can i download your vids? coz i dont have an internet at home i just rent it…i wanna put it to my ipod…thanks a lot..thanks for the reply…

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102. Jexso said on — July 9, 2009 @ 4:22 pm

     Hi, great Tut!
     What is the difference between filling the Alpha-Channel with white and brighten it up with the levels controler. Can I also do it that way?
     Thanks, j

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104. ananya said on — July 25, 2009 @ 4:34 am

     amazing!
     thanks a lot Corey!

105. ananya said on — July 25, 2009 @ 4:36 am

     amazing!
     thanks a lot Corey.

106. victor said on — July 25, 2009 @ 1:48 pm

     its just fantastic and very creative as well!

107. loriannebu said on — July 26, 2009 @ 3:34 pm

     app during period www difficult points ice

108. JW Stovall said on — July 26, 2009 @ 8:05 pm

     Spectacular and you again, showed how anyone can be a graphic artist…Thanks.

109. Abhinav said on — July 27, 2009 @ 6:13 am

     it’s really esey and effictive work thnks

110. theresaa. said on — August 1, 2009 @ 1:25 am

     whoa. that looks so cool. how do you download it ?
     

111. santiago said on — August 4, 2009 @ 12:24 am

     Me quede anonadado. It is a very explicit tutorial. My wife love me more after a did her picture using this technich.
     Thank you, YOU ARE THE MASTER.

112. ĐạtHT said on — August 8, 2009 @ 5:28 am

     thanks :X
     It’s my result for this effec : http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn312/tiendata1vt/designeffec.jpg :X

113. Melvin said on — August 20, 2009 @ 12:29 am

     How can I do this IN Photoshop elements 7 ?

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