Adobe Photoshop Tutorials - Photo Effects

Dramatic Black & White Effect

Learn Photoshop with Photo Effects Tutorials at Photoshop Essentials.com

Step 11: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter

I'm going to apply the Gaussian Blur filter at this point to smooth out that gradient, so I'll go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, then I'll select Blur and then Gaussian Blur. When the Gaussian Blur dialog box comes up, I'm going to set the Radius value to about 8 pixels:

Photoshop's Gaussian Blur filter. Image © 2009 Photoshop Essentials.com
Smooth out the edges around the gradient by applying the Gaussian Blur filter.

Click OK to exit out of the Gaussian Blur filter.

Step 12: Lower The "Fill" To 0%

Still with the white-to-transparent layer selected, go up to the Fill option in the top right of the Layers palette, directly below the Opacity option, and lower it all the way down to 0%. This will completely hide the gradient from view, but it won't hide any Layer Styles that we're going to apply next:

Lowering the Fill value to 0% in the Layers palette. Image © 2009 Photoshop Essentials.com
Lower the "Fill" value of the white-to-transparent gradient layer to 0%.

Step 13: Add A White "Outer Glow" Layer Style

Click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Outer Glow from the list:

Selecting the 'Outer Glow' layer style. Image © 2009 Photoshop Essentials.com
Click on the "Layer Styles" icon and select "Outer Glow" from the list.

Set the color of the Outer Glow to white by clicking on the color swatch:

Clicking the Outer Glow color swatch. Image © 2009 Photoshop Essentials.com
Click the "Outer Glow" color swatch to change its color.

This will bring up Photoshop's Color Picker. To choose white, enter 255 for the R, G and B options in the bottom right half of the dialog box:

Photoshop's Color Picker. Image © 2009 Photoshop Essentials.com
Entering 255 for the R (Red), G (Green) and B (Blue) options creates white.

Click OK to exit out of the Color Picker dialog box. With white now selected as the Outer Glow color, lower the Opacity value to around 40% and increase the Size of the glow to about 90 pixels as circled below:

The Outer Glow options. Image © 2009 Photoshop Essentials.com
Lower the opacity to 40% and increase the size to 90 pixels.

Click OK to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box, and you're done!

Here's my final "dramatic black & white" effect:

Photoshop dramatic black and white effect.
The final result.

And there we have it!

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