Summary: Combine a few layer blend modes, some noise, a little sharpening, and a simple adjustment layer to give your photos an extreme contrast effect.

Written by Steve Patterson
Exclusively for Photoshop Essentials.com.

Part of our complete collection of Photo Effects tutorials.

In this Photoshop Effects tutorial, we're going to learn how to use layers, layer blend modes, some noise, a little sharpening, and a simple adjustment layer to easily give a photo an "extreme contrast" effect.

Here's the photo I'll be using for this tutorial:

And here's the "extreme contrast" effect we're aiming for:

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Let's get started.

Step 1: Duplicate The Background Layer

The first thing we're going to do is duplicate our Background layer. We can see in the Layers palette that we only have one layer at the moment, which is the Background layer, and it contains our original image:

We're going to duplicate it, and for that, we can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). We now have a copy of the layer above the Background layer which Photoshop has named "Layer 1":

Step 2: Desaturate The New Layer

We're going to quickly remove the colors from our new layer to create a black and white version of the image. To do that, use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+U (Win) / Shift+Command+U (Mac). The image will now appear in black and white in the Document Window:

Step 3: Duplicate The Desaturated Layer

With "Layer 1" selected in the Layers palette, press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to duplicate it, so we'll now have two black and white layers in the Layers palette:

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