Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics
back with another video tutorial for Adobe Photoshop.
Today I'm going to show you some image processing techniques to achieve a cool Cyberpunk style
visual effect within your photos.
This popular art style takes inspiration from 80s nostalgia, and the neon-noir genre of
movies such as Bladerunner, which feature densely populated, futuristic cities illuminated
by bright neon signs and advertisements.
We'll process the original photo to give it a hyper-realistic HDR appearance, then apply
heavy colour grading with hot pinks and bright blues, which are a popular aesthetic of this
style.
Enhancements to the neon signs, plus some subtle mist and smoke effects will then finish
off the image with the stylised atmosphere of those neon-noir movies.
This effect works best with photographs of busy streets in far-eastern cities, such as
Toyko, Hong Kong or Seoul.
Tall buildings and bright lights are key features, but you could also try out images of dark
back-alleys to tap into the sinister mood of neon-noir films.
Unless you have your own photos from travelling to those parts of the world, it can be quite
difficult to find unprocessed images to make use of.
In this tutorial I'll be using this photo of Seoul, Korea by Steven Roe on Unsplash.com.
It does already have some bright colour adjustments, but it's a great scene to enhance with a cyberpunk
vibe.
Open your chosen photograph in Adobe Photoshop.
Begin by duplicating the background layer to save a copy of the original for reference.
Right click on the duplicate layer and choose Convert to Smart Object, so the subsequent
adjustments will be applied non-destructively, allowing you to go back and alter the settings
if necessary.
Head to Filter > Camera Raw Filter in the top menu.
Here we'll use a bunch of adjustments to give the image a pseudo-HDR look to increase the
dynamic range and achieve the dream-like appearance.
The Temperature and Tint sliders are a great place to start to begin introducing the pink
and blue colour casts.
The exact values will depend on your specific image, but eyeball the result in the preview
panel.
Dramatically decreasing the Highlights and Increasing the Shadows really helps bring
out all the details of the image for that flat HDR look.
Reducing the highlights does take the luminance out of the lights, so bumping up the Whites
slightly helps brighten them back up.
It might be tempting to increase the Clarity on such a detailed image, but decreasing it
to between minus 8 and 10 actually works better to bring out the ambience of all the lights.
Increasing the Dehaze slider to around plus 30 can help bring back some of the contrast
lost by adjusting the highlights and shadows.
In the menu at the top, choose the icon that represents Split Toning.
Here we can further enhance the pink-blue theme.
Send the Saturation slider to max to find the right hue, then bring the saturation back
down to fine tune the result.
I went with a pink-purple in the highlights at 30%, and a deep blue for the shadows with
20% saturation.
Finally, in the FX panel, add a Vignette with an amount of around -50 and a touch of feathering
so it gradually fades out.
These Camera Raw adjustments alone have really helped achieve the main visual traits of retrowave
or Cyberpunk style art, but there's a few more tweaks that will enhance it further.
Add a Levels adjustment layer to fine tune the tone of the image.
Move the shadows end of the slider to around 18-20, then drag the midtones to darken the
overall scene to around 0.65.
In the output levels underneath, move in the shadows slider to bring up the black point,
giving it more of a slightly washed out look.
Click the New layer icon at the bottom of the layer stack, then go to Select > Color
Range.
Choose highlights from the menu, then set the Fuzziness to 0.
Bring up the Range to around 220.
Fill this selection with white, using either the CMD or CTRL on Windows and Backspace key,
or via the Edit > Fill menu.
Go to Select > Deselect to deactivate the selection.
Set the Fill amount to zero by adjusting the slider at the top of the Layers panel, then
double click the layer to add an Outer Glow layer style.
Set the blending mode to Linear Dodge, which will provide a nice vivid glow effect.
Bump up the opacity to 100% for now to fully see the result.
Play with the Size and Spread values to achieve a subtle glow around all the lights, without
blowing out the luminance too much.
You can go back and bring down the opacity value to fine tune the result.
I ended up with a 25px size, 2% spread and 34% opacity.
Since bright lights are such an important part of this art style, adding this outer
glow illuminates parts of the image with an even brighter glow.
Set up the Brush tool with a large soft tip, then bring down the Flow value to between
30-40%.
Sample a vibrant colour from the image and add dabs of colour on a new layer that correspond
to the colour of the lights in that part of the image.
Set the blending mode to Screen and bring the opacity down to around 30%.
These colour overlays help add to the ambient glow of the lights, and produce a kind of
subtle mist effect.
Select the Pen tool and begin tracing one of the signs within the scene.
Click and drag the points to form curves, then ALT+click the end point to remove the
bezier handle ready for the next line.
Hold the CMD or CTRL key on Windows and click on the canvas to reset the Pen for the next
path, then continue tracing the rest of the words.
Temporarily switch back to the Brush tool in order to set it up with a white tip, max
hardness and 100% Flow, then in the Brush Settings, decrease the Spacing to zero.
Alter the size of the tip in relation to the sign in the photo to roughly the size a neon
tube would be, before switching back to the Pen tool.
With the Pen tool active, hold the CMD key to toggle to the selection tool and draw across
all the paths that form the sign outlines.
Add a new layer, then right click and choose Stroke.
Choose Brush in the Tool option with Simulate Pressure deselected.
Now the paths have been stroked, they can be deleted with the backspace key.
Double click the layer to add some layer styles to make these white lines look like illuminated
neons.
Begin with a Color Overlay to select the colour of your sign.
Add an Inner Glow next, with a blend mode of Linear Dodge and white as the fill colour.
Bump up the opacity while setting up the options.
Set the Source to Center, then alter the size so the blue colour overlay fades in at the
edges.
Play with the opacity to balance the overall brightness.
Add an Outer Glow next, the Linear Dodge setting will already be established, but change the
colour to a blue to match the colour of the neon, then alter the size to illuminate the
sign.
45px worked for the the scale of this image.
The Outer Glow effect isn't one that can be duplicated, but we can configure the Drop
Shadow effect to work in the same way.
Set it up with a blue hue with Linear Dodge, then reduce the Distance to zero.
Bump up the Size of this effect to over 100px to add more ambience to the neon glow.
The same process can be used to illuminate other signs within the scene that weren't
illuminated in real life.
An easy way to add the same neon effects is to right click on the existing layer and choose
Copy Layer Style, then paste the effects onto the new layers.
With this particular sign, the overhead cables pass in front of it.
Add a layer mask and use the Line tool with the appropriate width to trace the cables
so the neon sits properly in the scene.
Neon lights of other colours can also be created by altering the colours of the layer style
settings.
Group all the neon layers by selecting them in the Layers panel with the Shift key, then
press CMD+G.
Add a new layer to create more visual effects.
Download and install a set of Smoke brushes.
The ones I use are linked in the description area.
Using white, with a low Flow value, paint around the canvas to add mist and fog.
Add a layer mask and paint within the mask with black using the same brush, to erase
parts of the smoke effect so it's not so thick.
Set the blending mode to Color Dodge, which will interact with all the vibrant colours
of the signs.
Reduce the Fill amount to reduce the vividness, then bring down the opacity to leave a subtle
addition of mist to the scene.
The final result is a really cool cyberpunk inspired photo effect that transforms a street
shot into a scene from a dystopian neon-noir story.
The blue and pink colour casts help bring in the retrowave theme, while the Camera Raw
adjustments give the photograph more of a hyper-realistic appearance.
Additional neon signs help enhance the cyberpunk vibe, then subtle colour casts and layers
of mist give the overall shot a dreary mood.
If you enjoyed this tutorial a thumbs up would be greatly appreciated to help recommend the
video to others.
Subscribe to my channel to stick around for more, and head over to my Spoon Graphics website
to bag yourself loads of free design resources.
As always thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.