SHEFing an image in Photoshop

SHEFing an image in Photoshop

SHEFing is a technique in which a picture is “Bloomed”. It gives the appearance of the image glowing and is a very good enhancement to a drama shot.

Ok…

[STEP 1] first load the image you want to SHEF.
I chose this one.



Now first of all you select ‘Image>>adjustments>>Brightness/Contrast’ when the Brightness/Contrast screen appears you set the Brightness to 20 and exit the window.



[STEP 2] next, duplicate the ‘background’ layer (assuming you haven’t changed the name) and make sure it is on top of the ‘background’ layer. On this layer you go to ‘Image>>adjustments>>Levels(Ctrl+L) once in this window move the mid-tone slider in the middle to the right as far as it will go.






Don’t worry that your image looks strange.

[STEP 3] while on the same layer select ‘Filter>>Blur>>Gaussian Blur’ and set the radius to 9.



After this open the layer options and choose ‘screen’.

[STEP 4] now make a duplicate layer of the first one again. Make sure it is on top again. Now go to Gaussian blur again and this time set the radius to 3. exit this and go to ‘Image>>adjustments>>Desaturate(Ctrl+Shift+U)’ then go to the layer options and select Overlay.

That’s it.
And this is what the final image should look like.



It will depend on what the original image was so if the effect doesn’t look the same don’t worry, maybe fiddle with some settings and see what the result is.
I appreciate all comments and I hope this tutorial works for you.

SHEFing is a absolutely wonderful technique to use along with photography! I like to use it with my flowers to really bring them out. I've actually gotten some great effects out of using this process! I hope everyone else that tries it out is as happy with it as I am.

wow... hey do you wanna help me with my new ava... to do the same thing...??

Thank you, this was my first go with SHEFing an image. I just reproduced the car image you provided.

I had some trouble on step 2's duplicate layer adjustment of the mid slider. I accidently moved the bottom slider(duh I know oops ). Worth noting that doing that and then adjusting the opacity of that layer to very low levels(7%) give a rather similar end result.

However I went back and corrected this and presto! Learned your method of SHEFing.


Thanks again!

X

EDIT-
And as an example, I did this to reinforce the concepts:


Before:



After:




Thanks again!

X

[edit on 2-7-2006 by Xatnys]

thank you all for your nice comments. i hope this tutorial adds to all of your photoshopping techniques and livens up you pics. also this was my firs tutorial so i am glad it all worked for you.