Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you to make photos into the look of powerful, movie poster, "golden
hour" images from photos.
In photography, the term, “Golden Hour” (aka: “Magic Hour”) refers to the time
of day shortly after sunrise or just before sunset, during which daylight is redder, more
golden in color and softer than when the Sun is higher in the sky.
Open a photo that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one and the others from Shutterstock.
Check your image's size and resolution by going to Image and Image Size.
The size of this image is approximately 800 by 1100 pixels with a resolution of 150 pixels per inch.
If your image has a different resolution and a much different size, you'll need to adjust
some of the filter setting amounts from the amounts I'm using to get similar results as mine.
We'll convert our image into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively and
adjust the filters at any time.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right corner of the Layers panel and click, "Convert to Smart Object".
Next, we'll automatically adjust its color cast and contrast by going to Image and "Auto Tone".
Auto-tone redistributes tonal values by separately boosting the contrast in the red, green & blue channels.
Next, we'll add a lens flare, which will add a warm light source to our image.
Go to Filter, Render and Lens Flare.
I'll make the Brightness 140%, but feel free to make it more or less intense.
For the lens type, choose "105 mm Prime".
Drag the flare to an area of your image that you want as a source of light.
Now that we have the exact position of the lens flare, press Ctrl or Cmd + z to remove
it from our image.
In a moment, we'll add back the lens flare in the exact position onto a separate layer.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
We'll fill the empty layer with black, but first, check your foreground and background colors.
If they're not black and white respectively, press "D' on your keyboard.
Since black is your foreground color, press Alt or Option + Delete.
To place the lens flare onto this layer, press Alt + Ctrl + F on Windows or Option + Cmd + F on a Mac
or you can go to Filter, Render and Lens Flare.
We'll remove the small color shapes and lens rings that appear outside the main flare because
our final image will look better without them.
To do this, open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Pick a soft, round brush.
We'll adjust the size in a moment.
Make its Hardness 0% and the Opacity and Flow: 100%.
To adjust the size of your brush, make sure your CapsLock key is off and press the right
or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Now, brush over the small color shapes and lens rings.
Change its Blend Mode to "Screen".
This makes the black disappear over our photo.
Double-click the lens flare layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Color Overlay".
Change its Blend Mode to Soft Light and click the color box.
In the hexadecimal field, type in FF9C00.
Then, click OK on both windows to close them or you can press Enter or Return, twice.
We'll intensify the effect by making a copy of the layer.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + J. If the effect is too intense for your image, you can reduce its opacity.
For this particular photo, I'll bring the opacity back to 100%.
Next, we'll bloom out the lighter tones of our image.
Make our photo active and go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
Open the Distort folder and click "Diffuse Glow".
Make the Graininess: 0, the Glow Amount: 1 and the Clear Amount: 7.
We'll convert all the layers in a Smart Object, by Shift-clicking the top layer to make all
the layers active and clicking "Convert to Smart Object".
Next, we'll add grainy texture to our image, which gives it an aged, movie frame film appearance.
Go to Filter and Camera Raw Filter.
Open the "Effects" panel.
I'll make the Grain amount: 50, but feel free to increase it if your image is larger and
/or has a higher resolution.
Make its Size and Roughness, both: 25.
We'll soften it, by going to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it anywhere from 0.5 pixels to 1 pixel.
If you want to adjust the contrast, click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Curves.
If the bottom of the Curves panel is hidden, just drag it down.
The diagonal line represents all the tones of an image.
The bottom left is the darkest tone and the top, right is the lightest tone.
For this image, I'll drag the lighter midtones down to darken them
and the darker midtones down to darken them, as well.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!