Photoshop Tutorials

Step 5

Now we are going to add a retro color effect to the photo. Start by adding a Color Fill adjustment layer (Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color). A window will appear asking you to select a color. Don’t worry about the color for now; just click OK. Change the blending mode of the layer to Exclusion then reduce the opacity to 25%.

Double click on the Color Fill layer to edit the settings.

Pick any color you like. You can get a lot of different color effects depending on the color you pick. The most popular color people use is #007fff.

Here’s an example of different colors you can use to create different color effects.

Step 6

To complete the photo effect, we’re going to add some Lomo Light Leaks. Download the light leak graphics below.

Light Leaks.zip | 125 MB
Download from FileSonic.
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Place (File > Place) the light leak you want to use into your document. You can just drag and drop the photo into Photoshop and it will automatically be placed in there for you.

First, change the blending mode to Screen.

Position and transform the light leak to your likings.

You can also add more than one light leak. These light leak graphics are stackable.

Here’s what the effect looks like.

If you rasterize the light leak layers, you can use the Hue/Saturation tool to change the colors. To rasterize the layer, right click on the light leak layer then choose Rasterize Layer.

Once the layer is rasterize, you can go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation to change the color by playing with the Hue setting.

Here’s what my image looks like after changing the color of the two light leak layers.

Final Results

There are many variations for this photo effect. You can get different results by changing the settings of the adjustment layers, using different blending modes, or hiding an adjustment layer.

The effect in the image below was created with Black & White adjustment layer hidden.

Here’s one more example.

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