Take Full Control of Light in Photoshop Using Gradient Maps

in this video we got to be talking about how to take full control of light in your photos using gradient Maps if the gradient map is one of the most versatile adjustment lesson Photoshop that is guaranteed to blow your mind whether you want to decrease the bright spots from your images or add more layers of dimension gradient Maps is your way to go so without any further ado let's jump straight in so here we answer seven by the way this gorgeous photo is available for download check the link in the description below ok so the first thing that you need to do is to create a gradient map ok so click on this gray white icon circle icon click on that and click on gradient map now it becomes black and white you don't have to worry just change the blend mode from normal to luminosity I'll explain what's happening ok once you have the properties right once you create a gradient map adjustment layer you should see what properties right so if you don't see the properties you can go to windows and make sure properties is checked ok so let's bring properties here so that you can see me now once you have the properties in place all you have to do is you can see that it's going from black to white if it's some other color doesn't really matter you can change it to black to white so single click on this make sure the first one is selected from black to white if it's some strange gradient showing right here only candy you can click the gear icon and then make sure you click on reset gradients and then click OK ok then click this one now it's very simple procedure you can save this later if you want so click on the middle click on the mirror and double click on this and change the color to 50% grade okay easiest way take it all the way to the left and change the brightness to 50 okay make sure it's 50 and take it all the way to the left change it to 5-0 there you go and ok create another one between these two click between these two and double click on this take it all the way to the left and set the brightness to 75 okay click OK now create another one between these two double-click on this set the brightness to 25 take it all the way to the left brightness to 25 click OK now here's the magic move it around if you want more highlights have a look take this to the left what happens highlights increase right ok so if you want more shiny areas take this to the left you see these shiny areas have been created if you want more dimensions more dark areas take this to lift Wow if you want more take this to the left isn't that interesting ok let me just quickly explain what exactly is happening right I just wanted to show you quick what we are going to do but let's click OK let's close this what exactly is happening let me create a dummy gradient map to show you what exactly happens when you create a gradient map because explanation is interesting important essential ok so let's create a gradient map and let me show you what exactly is happening now what is the gradient map it's simply a map of gradients that's all there is make sense no let me just show you ok so if I single click on this and click on any other gradient say this one see the strange kind of color has been projected over her here's what's happening every image can be divided into these pretty areas right mid-tones moderately bright areas bright areas very bright areas dark areas very dark areas so on and so forth you can make as many layers as many areas as you want now these areas combined together to make what a map right and gradient map these areas control what exactly happens in those areas for example if I choose this so in the far left there is darkest areas of the photo in the far right there is the brightest areas of the photo so if I change this color to say blue say red the dark areas become red and if I change this white to say yellow the bright areas become yellow make sense right you can make as many layers as you want you can make another layer here change it to somewhere on this color you can create bundles and bundles of layers so as we move towards the left it controls the darker areas as we move towards the right it controls the brighter areas right and if you change the color here it controls what the mid-tones so that's specifically what it is now what we have done here in this one is that it's a black-and-white it's a gradation from black to white now if we don't change the blend mode it will be a black and white image but we have changed the blend mode to luminosity which means that we are saying to photoshop don't affect the colors just affect the brightness darkness mid-tones so on and so forth don't affect the colors affect everything else not the colors so let's get back let's zoom in quite a bit and to have a better understanding and let's get back to this gradient editor this is the gradient editor now if you move this sliders as you can see this area is also becoming dark you move this slider to the left this area is also becoming more bright ok so say you want to get rid of the hotspot what you would do you would take it all the way to the right see you got rid of the hotspot so that's how you have completely able to control what's happening in your photos now I just created now one two three four five sliders you can create as many sliders if you want get as much intricate as you want now the trick is this if you are clicking on the middle and if the location percentage is 50 make sure it's 50% gray right if you're if your location is say this location if it's a 80 right if it's 80 make sure the color of it is 80% brightness 80% bright take it all the way to the left and then 80 and then move so you basically have the idea of how exactly it works now all you have to do we just have to move the sliders according to our image if you want softness you would need want highlights but this since this is a bodybuilding photo this workout photo you want more of a grungy look here so something like that don't go too close it will just start to just show crazy edges so don't go too close there we go take it over to the left take it left okay once you're satisfied click okay have a look at the photo ah this just goes have a look so this is the before this is the after makes tons of difference now if you think this is too much of hot spots here's what you have to do double click on this single click on this take this to the right there you go not too less just a little bit to the right take it to the left just a little bit take it to the right there you go click OK close it and it's done but as you can see if you remove the hot spots from your face here's what's happening you're missing out on the highlights on the body and we don't want to let go of it so let's come back to this and let me show you a trick here so if I single click on listen if I bring back the hot spots just like that see how nice the hot spots are we don't want to get rid of it right so nice hot spots click OK now zoom back in as you can see there are a couple of hot spots you want to get rid of all you have to do you already have a mouse click on that mask take the brush make sure the foreground color is black decrease the flow to 20 ish okay it's already decreased on my sadder okay and just paint over the highlights there we go slightly with black okay done before I mean before the mask after the mask can be a little gentle here with that okay yeah pretty nice isn't it now usually what happens is waning applied this kind of effect anything that has to do with drama it usually takes away the saturation or increases the saturation in this case as you can see the colors have decreased just a little bit so what I would do I would create let's delete this gradient map this is just for demonstration let's add a y brent's adjustment layer and increase the vibrance just a little bit there you go have a look so here's the before here's the after right makes a ton of difference now for a finishing touch let's add an awesome light effect now here's what you have to do create a merge layer now what was the shortcut for creating a merge layer ctrl alt shift and E Mack it would be command option shift and if you press that ctrl alt shift e it creates a new layer emerged new labs and what is that it's a layer with everything applied every effect everything applied just in one layer merged now let's convert this into a smart object so that when we apply a filter it will be non-destructive which means that you can always go back and change the values so to convert this into a smart object you can do two things go to filter convert for Smart Filters click OK this converts this into a smart object or what you can do you can right click on it and go to convert to smart option like two ways of doing the same thing now go to filter wait for this link for this to render light effects now here says the fun begins now in light of X as you can see by default you will have a spotlight now light effects filter is one of the most fantastic filter to add any kind of advanced light effect and they can be a complete tutorial on this so wait for this this is just a preview of that ok so as you can see it has by default added a spotlight on how nice it is looking so you can move the spotlight if you want just let's move it here you can make it a little border you know bigger there you go scale length now how to know when what's happening with the cursor okay here's how to know that when you hover the cursor it right there rotate now which means that if you click and drag it will rotate now when the text changes to move click and drag to move when the text changes to say scale a length click and drag to scale the length that's how to know that so this much is good now if you want to decrease the intensity decrease the color slider I love this intensity and if you want to decrease the ambience and Beyond and I don't know how to pronounce that but this is the ambience this is everything outside the spotlight ok so this is the ambience make it dark grungy kind of look there we go increase the color just a little bit this is the hot spot okay so you want to decrease the hot spot to make it more smoother or make it more harsh you don't want to keep it like that and once you're satisfied click OK now you see how wonderful spotlight effect it adds now as you can see there are a couple of places on our body which is completely dark which we want to brighten and there are a couple of places which we want to darken and that's the advantage of having it on a separate layer so that we can create a mask and rub out those areas so there's too much bright here so what we do we create a mask take the brush make sure the foreground color is black press X toggle between the foreground and background color slow it somewhere low and just paint over her skin there we go paint over this area it's too bright just bend over there we go how wonderful this is now if you want to get some brightness back here you can paint with black you just okay because the flow is - I mean keep it 5 something like that right now it's wonderful when I get something back here something make it smaller if we go something back here Wow have a look at the before you started here now you're here how wonderful is that can I give you an awesome tip to save you a ton of time and get really really creative with this here's what to do once you're in the gradient adjustment layer properties simply click on this and you have all the sliders adjusted right and you can save this as a play set what you can do you can name it say body 1 now you might be tempted to click Save but that's not the way to go click kneel and as you can see this has been saved as a set as part of the set here now here's what's more you adjust it even more you create a variation of this it maybe change the color also you can do that you want to change the color maybe change somewhere around grayish something like that a new effect click OK you want to change the color and then you can name it say body 2 and you can save this to click on you there you go and if you want you can delete all of these sliders which are useless there and save this as a set you can save this as a complete set ok save save it like body set and save it save now once you load it next time we do it for example next time you're applying gradient map let's just go ahead and turn it off next time you're applying say gradient map you can just single click on this oh I just forgot change the blending mode to luminosity next time you're applying that scene in the contest and you have this loaded already if you don't have to show that you can click load and you can load what body set and there you go right and then all you have to do you just have to click here and there you go it's just one click also what you can do you can save starting points now what a starting point styling wise are the one that we created in the beginning everything positioned right this is far to the left it's as part of the life thesis right this is on position 50 position 25 position 75 and everything adjusted and can save this and that wanted if this is that you don't have to create this again and again once you have created this you can create a starting point of say five sliders ten sliders as intricate as 16 sliders as many status as you want and you just have to go ahead click on that and just start adjusting and there you go now I know what you're thinking if you're like me you'll be pretty excited about the light effects filter but wait they'll make a complete different tutorial about that but for now let's just focus on gradient Maps so just took a free cap here so to do create a gradient map adjustment layer then change the blend mode to luminosity because we don't want to affect the colors right so single click on this and then click on the middle if you want to be super precise if you have the corrupt and OCD make sure the location is 50% and then double click on this change the brightness to 50 make sure you take it all the way to the left and change the brightness to 50 click OK click it here in the middle of these two sliders or to be precise make sure the location is 75 and then click on this and take it all the way to left make sure the brightness is 75 as simple as that do it here to okay double click on this to make sure it's 25 then now you see anyway VIIRS going to move this so this location doesn't really matter so you don't have to be precise okay so once you're done moving it click OK then if you see there's the shift happening with colors you can add a wipe and suggest mentally play with the values of fiber also you can use a hue/saturation adjustment a flavour the values of hue if you want and saturation if you want it's really interesting now then to give it a finishing touch create a merged layer don't forget to convert that into a smart object then apply the filter light effects ok filter render light effects apply a spotlight if you want apply an omni if you want to apply anything you want and you're pretty much good to go so finally that's all there is for this video hope you enjoyed this and if you did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss anything I would like to take this moment to thank all our supporters who are supporting us to keep pigs in perfect free for everybody forever through patreon if you want to support this channel check the link at the description again thank you all for watching I'll see you as my next until then stay tuned and make sure that you [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 83,400

Keywords: gradient map photoshop, spot light photoshop, create light effect in photoshop, photoshop light effects, dramatic effect photoshop, dramatic lighting in photoshop, dramatic portrait, portrait retouching, remove hotspot, add dramatic lighting, toning in photoshop, piximperfect

Id: VXyl_2U2nqI

Length: 16min 23sec (983 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2017