How to Create a Dreamy Glow Effect in Photoshop

Hey, everyone and welcome to another video tutorial from Robert’s productions. Today, we’re going to be showing you how to create a dreamy glow effect like this one in Photoshop. We’re going to be creating on this dreamy glow effects for all those weddings, insignitas, sweet sixteen’s and much more maybe just you in the front of your house, sitting there, try it into a dreamy glow effect. I kind of have to go faster because this is quite a long tutorial but you know you too doesn’t mean upload more that 10 minutes of video so I got to just do this as quickly and as understandable as possible.

So to start of with, were going to press Control-J and were going to duplicate this background. So just hit Control-J and that duplicates our background into a new a layer. Now we have layer one. We’re going to go over here to the background there. We’re going to select filter, blur, Gaussian blur and I’m going to set the ratio to about 7.3 pixels and that looks pretty good, click Okay.

Now what were going to do is, I’m going to click over to layer one and I’m going to hold down Alt-Shift. Actually before I do that I’m going to hit Control-T to open up our transforming settings and I’m going to hold down Alt and Shift and I’m just going to bring this down towards the middle and what Alt and Shift does is it brings of the image and it resizes it down towards the center axis while keeping the same aspect ratio.

Our next step that we’re going to do is we’re going to open up our hue and saturation for this layer one. So we’re going to image, adjustment, hue and saturation and I’m going to set the saturation to about -40 and that looks pretty good so click Okay. I’m also going to change the levels so our image adjustment levels and for the levels, I’m going to set this first one to 39 and this middle one. We set forward image, adjustments levels, this is going to be 39 and 0.73 and it’s kind of weird. I don’t know why but anyway click Okay.

The next thing we’re going to do is we’re going to duplicate our layer one, so hit Control-J. Now, we have our layer one copy. Make sure layer one copy is selected and we’re going to filter, blur, lens blur and keep all these settings at the default and click okay. Once it’s done, we’re going to go over here and add a layer mass to layer one copy.

So just go down here and hit this button at a layer mass. We’re going to hit D to reset the background and foreground color and I’m going to hit “X” so that we have black as our foreground and white as our background. I’m going to choose a soft brush in about 450 pixels, 450 and if you don’t see your brushes here I’m just going to click this arrow basic brushes, click Okay and I’m going to just, 450 soft brush and that is pretty good.

Okay now we’re just going to go kind of select around her face and a little bit back in the bridge. That’s all I’m doing for now so onto our next step which is going to the photo filter. We’re going to click back an arrow tool, click this little thumbnail with the picture in it, not the mass just the layer thumbnail and we’re going to go to image adjustments, photo filter. And for our photo filter, we’re going to use Sepia and for the density I’m going to set it at 45% and just click Okay.

We’re going to go image, adjustment, brightness and contrast. And I’m going to set the brightness to -12 and the contrast at 7.

Now, I’m going to use this brush. I’m going to over here to the brush tool. I’m going to create a new layer down here and for our brush tool you’re going to download a brush from the link to the right of this video. The description there will be a link to download this brush. Since I already have it and sold into my Photoshop brushes folder, I’m just going to click on this arrow, go down here to our Cad light two which that what the brushes are called, just click okay and I’m going to select this 454 pixel brush and I’m just going to click on few areas. It is okay if you get her face a little bit. I’m just going to put it there, there and just maybe right there, a little bit there okay. And once you have that just go here to the eraser tool and erase over her face just like that okay.

Now the next thing we’re going to do is were going to layer, new adjustment layer, radiant map and for our radiant map, we’re going to set the mode to overlay and the opacity at 50%, click Okay. Now we get our radiant map window. We’re just going to click here and when you open it at first, you’ll probably get the default colored samples which is not really sure which I'm not sure which one it is but when you have the default color here, just click this arrow and select color harmonious 2. You should have it if you’re in Photoshop CS3. We’re going to select this color gradient like that, okay and just click Okay.

The next thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to set the opacity of this brush layer. Now we’re at the radiant map, we’re just going to get back on this brush layer. We’re going to set the opacity to about 70% and actually just 70%, 71 is close enough and I like to bring down the opacity of this gradient map just a little bit so it’s not too colorful. Okay just like that.

Once you’ve done that, now we’re going to go back to our layer one and we’re going to set a drop shadow so just double click to open up our layer style and click on drop shadow. For our distance, we’re going to set it at two and spread zero and size at six. Now, it looks pretty good so click Okay.

And for our last few settings, I’m just going to hit Control-Shift-E and what that did was to merge all of our layers together. This was before and after so now all of our layers are merged into one layer out there.

Now we’re going to open our level so go image, adjustments, level and for levels I’m just going to set this first one to 21 and that looks pretty good. You click Okay and that’s all you could do. You can add a little text real fast. I’m just going to add something the moment okay and set color to white. Bring down the size a little bit, pick a good font, one that’s you know resembles what you’re doing.

And that’s all there is to this dreamy glow effect tutorial. I hope this helps. If you’re are in need too, please write, comment and subscribe. I’m Robert from Robert’s production studios and until next time, take care.