photoshop

coffeeshop photoshop actions

I found this cool collection of Photoshop actions from CoffeeShop I wanted to share. Actions are cool because they’re easy to use and I love going through the steps and seeing how other photographers achieve certain results. The best part about Photoshop is that there is a million different ways to do everything, and the more you know how to use it, the easier it’s going to be to get the look you want and experiment.

Some of my favourites are:

But there are a lot on the site, and they’re all free! Check it out.

cross-processing

Cross-processing is a film technique where you process slide film in negative film chemicals, or vice versa. It was huge in the 80’s and 90’s, you don’t see it as much anymore, probably since digital has become ubiquitous. It’s still a pretty cool look though, strange oversaturated colours, lots of contrast, total unpredictability.

If you’re looking to try out some digital photography cross-processing in Photoshop, check out one of my favourite tutorials from photoshopsupport.com. There are a million different ways to get a cross-processed look with Photoshop, but I like this one because it gives the most traditional look that I’ve found. It also uses curves to achieve the look, so you can modify it to your tastes and to the specific photo, unlike a predetermined Photoshop action which will just give the same result everytime.

Here’s some random examples of cross-processing. To really get a feel for the possible looks though you’ll have to look more in depth. I suggest starting with flickr and searching through the various groups dedicated to the look.