Let me show you how to add a colorful
dual lighting effect to a portrait in Photoshop.
This tutorial is for beginners,
but I will use advanced techniques that I'm sure you'll love.
I'll go slow and explain everything in small, digestible chunks
so that you understand the process.
This tutorial is part of my Hands-on tutorial series in Photoshop.
I created ten tutorials that appear inside of Photoshop 2021.
That's Photoshop version 22.5 and newer.
This means that you can open the assets for this tutorial directly from Photoshop
and follow along with Coach Marks showing you each step of the process.
To open this tutorial in Photoshop, go into the Discover panel.
You can bring it up by clicking on the Discover icon
or by pressing CTRL F on Windows, that's Command F on the Mac.
From the Discover panel,
click on Hands on Tutorials,
then scroll down until you find this tutorial.
Or type "add a color dual lighting effect"
into the search bar.
When you find it, click on the tutorial
and click on the blue Start Tutorial button.
To open the files in your Photoshop.
You can then follow along with the Guided onscreen overlays or this video.
No worries if you don't have the latest version of Photoshop,
you can follow along with older versions as well.
You can download the tutorial files from my website.
The link is in the description.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to use
Gradient Maps, Blending Modes, and Layer Masks
to create the illusion of two lights of different colors hitting the main subject.
This technique works best with images
with defined shadows and highlights.
Like the image that you see here.
Start by selecting your main subject.
You can easily do so by going into the Select menu and choosing Subject.
This command will use artificial intelligence known as Adobe Sensei,
to automatically detect the main subject in a photo
and create a selection around it.
With the selection active, go into the Layers panel
and click on the new Group icon to create a new Layer group.
This Layer group will contain all the layers
that will create the dual lighting effect.
Next, click on the Add Layer Mask icon
to create a Layer mask based on the active selection.
Applying the Layer Mask to a group
makes it possible to control multiple layers with just one Layer Mask.
Go back into the new Adjustment Layer icon
and choose Black and White to desaturate the image.
Before you move on to the next step,
click on the Layer thumbnail, then set the default foreground and background colors.
You can do so by tapping on the D key on the keyboard
or by clicking on this small two square icon.
The default colors are a black foreground and a white background.
Next, go back to the new Adjustment Layer icon and Select Gradient Map.
The foreground and background colors
that you set earlier will be used for this Gradient map.
Click on the Gradient Preview to open the Gradient editor
and Double-Click on this white color Swatch below the Gradient
to open the Color Picker.
And set the color to a light blue.
Press OK to close the Color Picker
and press OK one more time to close the Gradiet Editor.
A Gradient map assigns color to correspond in brightness values.
Colors on the left of the Gradient are mapped to the darker tones
and the colors on the right are mapped to the highlights,
which is why the highlights on his skin tones look blue and the shadows are black.
To make this lighting effect more realistic,
open the blending mode dropdown and Select Hard light.
This effect is too strong.
You can reduce the intensity by decreasing the opacity.
You can set it to about 90% in this case.
For this effect,
we're going to make the light on the right side red,
so you will need to edit the Gradient Map Layer mask
to hide the blue light from those areas.
To do so, select the Brush Tool from the Toolbar.
Then click on this down-pointing arrow
to open the Brush Presets and set the Brush Size to about 150
and make sure that the Hardness is set to zero, so that you have a soft brush.
Black should still be your foreground color.
And the Gradient Map Layer Mask should be selected.
You can see the focus, the white outline, around the Layer Mask thumbnail.
Start by painting on the right side
wherever you think the red light will hit his face and body.
I'm going quickly here, but take your time in your projects to get better results.
Next, duplicate this Gradient Map.
There's two ways of doing so.
You can press CTRL J on Windows that's Command J on the Mac.
Or you can go into the Layer menu and choose New Layer Via Copy.
This is an exact duplicate of the original Gradient Map,
but make sure that it only affects the areas you hid in the previous step.
To easily do so Invert the Layer Mask by pressing
CTRL I on Windows, Command I on the Mac
or you can go into the Image menu,
Adjustments and Invert either method will work.
Now you need to change the color on the right side to red.
From the Properties, panel click on the Gradient to bring up the Gradient Editor.
Then Double-Click on the blue Swatch
to bring up the color picker and change the color to red.
Then press OK, and press OK one more time to close the Gradient Editor.
If you enjoy this technique, hit that like button now!
And let me know in the comments
what you thought about this In-app Photoshop tutorial.
Also, remember to go into Photoshop
and check out all my other In-app tutorials in the Discover panel.
You'll see my name, Jesus Ramirez,
on all my tutorials inside of Photoshop.
And look below in the description for a link to a playlist
with all my videos about the In-app tutorials.
Also, make sure that you check out
my Photoshop in App tutorial on changing day into night.
You can watch it here.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll talk to you again in the next tutorial.