What effects do you use most often on pics

Talking about special effects.

After you are thru editing your pics what special effects is it that use most often.

For me its color to B & W conversion I use PSP to do this and the channel mixer settings. Then I add softness by using the soft portrait.
I dont just apply the soft portrait filter first I select each eye and the mouth then selections invert then add the filter that way the eyes and mouth are still very sharp.
Second would be sepia toning using virtual photographer.

Sonya

Back when an Olympus was my digital camera, the standard effect (on nearly every photo) was color adjustment to get rid of the excess blue. Grrr.

Since I got a G3, I hardly use effects at all. I crop for Web pages, and sometimes fiddle a bit with contrast or color balance. I also remove red-eye, and occasionally use a clone tool to get rid of a distraction. If I have a great shot that deserves it, I might desaturate and boost contrast to get a B&W version.

Sepia isn't my thing.

I tend not to use the built in Effects at all.
Though I do adjust the custom Effects in camera.
I reduce contrast and sharpness settings to the minimum,
as these can be better managed in photoshop.
though I do leave the Saturation on the middle setting.

You can always increase sharpness and contrast in more subtle ways later, but it is harder to reduce them.

I am working on another page for my website and I wanted to show different effects.
So I am showing B & W, Sepia,Color with softness added and I need one more.
I was going to do painting but everyone saying they dont like that I really need one more for this particular page any ideas?

Sonya

I know it's cheesy, but I'm a sucker for brush stroke filters....

Would you mean like this pic?

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

If you were refering to techniques instead of a single effect, I would say...
selective sharpening like HPF or Dream Glow (red channel blurred blend for portraits.).

SonyaL wrote:
Would you mean like this pic?

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO

Yeah! Exactly. My favourites are crosshatch and drybrush. I actually don't use them that often, but I find they can save a technically poor photo (i.e. noise, missed focus, etc.). Kind of fun...

varies from picture to picture. not normally a single effect, but a lot of individual manipulations depending on image type : ) I have been using the lens blur filter quite a lot recently, and a set of 'cross processing' photoshop plug-ins, and an excellent plug-in for 'lith print' effect. The crop tool and 'free transform' are probably my most used if they count as 'effects'.

I know in the past some pics make for a really good sketch where as others look horrible I tried this one in a sketch and it did not work very well.
The model in this pic is our 3 yr old grandaughters shes my best model. LOL.


Sonya

Unsharp mask?

Now don't start laughing as this is not supposed to be a 'special effect', but when I finally tried that out on my G2 images about a year after first hearing about it, it was some kind of revelation to me.

Best regards,
Andy

I have not tried unsharp mask what does it do?

Sonya

It does exactly the opposed to what it’s name suggest: It SHARPENS your images. In my opinion it is the best filter yet to sharpen your photos whit a minimum of adverse side effects.
The name comes from a well known process in a real darkroom were the photographer used an unsharpened copy of the negative in the process of sharpening the print.

As I did nothing but basic darkroom work, I leave the explanation of the film technique to a better trained photographer (Terry?)

Sonya,

the unsharp mask will make your images sharper.

Take a look at this thread: By popular request: Workflow tutorial

It's a great thread by forum user Schmoelzel (who I consider to be a nothing less than a genius when it comes to people images) about post processing on portraits, and USM is one step in that process.

Just look at the image he starts with and at the final result, I think you'll be as amazed as I was.

Before:

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

The origional Purpose of unsharp mask was to neutralise the fuzzy edges caused by poor focus.
On a picture of a black object on a white ground. those edges taper from black through grey to white.
To neutralize them, the negative was contact printed with a piece of clear film between the negative and the copy film, to give space for light to diffuse and make soft edges on the copy film. this was exposed and processed to give a mask that maintained those soft edges, but now of course it would be a posative.
When the origional neg and the copy posative were taped together in register and printed the new edges neutralized the negatives edges and made the print seem sharper.

Unlike unsharp mask in photoshop it only had an effect on edges, fine detail was not changed,( if there was any)
It was mainly done in process houses when the final output was to be used in printing books or advertisements, as it was a slow and expensive process.

Photoshop cs2 now has a super unsharp mask called smart sharpen, which is even better. than unsharp mask.