Welcome to this tutorial on the Dragan Effect in Corel PaintShop Pro.
The Dragan Effect is one of the most popular image editing effects right now.
Created by Polish photographer Andrzej Dragan,
this effect uses dramatic lighting and editing techniques that enhance the
tonality and skin texture of the image's subject.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to simulate the Dragan Effect on your photos using PaintShop Pro.
This effect can be applied to photos you have,
but for the best effect, choose a well-lit portrait with eyes fully visible.
Once you have made your choice, open the image in Corel PaintShop Pro.
In the layers palette, duplicate the background layer twice
by right-clicking the mouse button, and then selecting Duplicate.
In this example I'll rename the first layer 'Negative'
and I'll rename the second layer 'Merge'.
Select your negative layer,
and then desaturate the image by going to Adjust,
Hue and Saturation,
Hue Saturation Lightness.
Or, by using the key combination Shift+H on your keyboard.
Set the values as Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
and Lightness: 0.
Next, invert the color of the image
by going to Image, and Negative Image.
Going back to your Layers palette, set the Blend mode to Overlay.
At this point, the image should look washed out.
Now open the Gaussian Blur dialog box by going to Adjust,
Blur, and then selecting Gaussian Blur.
Depending on the image used you can set the Radius between 0 and 100.
In this particular tutorial, the Radius is set to 20.
Next, combine the Negative and the Merge layer.
To do this, right-click on the Negative layer, and then select Merge, and then Merge Down.
Open the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness dialog box again,
or by pressing Shift+H on your keyboard,
and then set the values to a Hue of 7,
Saturation of - 40,
and a Lightness of 0.
Now we'll add back the contrast.
Open the Levels dialog box by going to Adjust,
Brightness and Contrast, and then selecting Levels.
We will set the values to 50, 165, and 255.
In this step, will be enhancing the details of the subject by further
increasing the contrast of the eyes and the creases of the skin.
Next, select the Dodge tool from the toolbox
and adjust the brush size so that would be small enough to brush over the eyes.
Zoom into the eyes of your subject.
Set the Opacity of the brush to 30.
You can also use the Sharpen brush to add detail to the eyes.
Using the Burn tool with the same settings as the Dodge tool,
brush over the creases of the skin and the dark areas
including the lips, the hair, and the clothing.
Finally, apply the high-pass sharpen by going to Adjust,
Sharpness, and selecting High Pass Sharpen.
Set the radius to 18, and the strength to 40.
And the blend mode to soft light.
To completely set the mood for your photo, apply a Vignette effect.
To do this, go to Effects, Photo Effects,
And then Vignette.
Using the Circular Selection tool,
Set a wide area of focus in your image.
You can experiment with the parameter.
In this tutorial, dark is set at -60,
and the feather edge is set at 50.
And the rest is set to 0.
Using PaintShop Pro's Black and White Film Filter
in Effects, Photo Effects, and Black and White Film,
you can give your image even more dramatic appeal.
You now have a Draganized photo!
To save your Project in JPEG format, go to File, Save As, and select JPEG.
Thank you for watching this video on the Dragan Effect in Corel PaintShop Pro.