Dramatic lighting with Curves Adjustment Layer

You can give dramatic lighting to an image in just a few steps in Photoshop. All you need is an image and a Curves Adjustment layer.

Step 1:  I have opened this free stock image in Photoshop. She is a pretty girl. There is a lot of background that she can do without. Let me use this image to demonstrate what you can do with a Curves Adjustment Layer. The image belongs to ~kristyvictoria Kristy Victoria

Step 2 : Click the New Fill or Adjustment Layer button and click on Curves.

Step 3 : The Curves dialogue box opens.

Step 4 : Drag the Input and Output (white and black sliders) as shown. 

There is nothing hard and fast about it. It is just to make the image very dark.

Step 5 : My image looks like this after application of the Curves Adjustment Layer.

Step 6 : Click the Lasso Tool.

Step 7 : Drag out a selection with the Lasso Tool.

Step 8 : As soon as you complete the selection, it changes into a column of marching ants.

Step 9 : This is how the Layers palette looks. 

There is just the Background Layer and the Curves Adjustment 

Layer over it.

Step 10 : The Foreground Color is set to White and Background to Black.

Step 11 : Press CTRL+BACKSPACE. It will fill with the Background Color which is Black.

Step 12 : Press CTRL+D to deselect. The marching ants go away.

Step 13 : Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.

Step 14 : The Gaussian Blur dialogue box comes up. 

Drag the Radius while keeping watch on the effect it has on the image.

This is how my image looks with this setting.

Step 15 : I have decreased the Radius.

This is how my image looks.

Instead of selecting the face, I could make the selection larger in Step 11.

I am setting the Radius at 35.

 

I am satisfied with this effect. You can see how simple it is to do.

Other photoshop tutorials are here