One of my favorite Photoshop add-ons is Dirty Pictures from Totally Rad Actions.   I am a big fan of adding textures and overlays to my images- some are obvious, others are subtle (the average viewer would not know that there was a texture/overlay involved) and add a three dimensional feeling to a pop of color to the images.  Dirty Pictures comes with 21 custom textures, but it isn’t the textures themselves that make this one of my favorite Photoshop filters.  Frankly, it is the interface which is brilliant (and you can add your own textures to the interface, so if you are like me and you already have favorite textures that you have shot or purchased, no worries- you can add them in).

In the past, if in the course of editing you decided that your image might benefit from a texture, then you used to have to open the texture, copy it to the image, reposition it, select the layer blending mode and opacity, create a layer mask and then edit the texture to taste.  Really, the only bit that I found tedious was actually CHOOSING the texture.  I have shot a lot of textures, and I usually know which textures I want on which images.  However, there was no easy interface to test different textures out on the image before committing to the best texture.  If you chose poorly, you would have to delete the layer and go find another texture in your personal library, repeating the above process.

Enter Dirty Pictures.  Now, if you want to add a texture to an image the interface is much easier.  Simply open Dirty Pictures (Filter>Totally Rad- Dirty Pictures).  A screen will pop up asking you to choose your texture.  This is nothing new, although you can now scroll through your textures visually right in Photoshop through Dirty Pictures.  Where Dirty Pictures really shines, though, is in the texture selection.  Dirty Pictures will take your image (the one you have open in Photoshop), create a thumbnail of that image, and add EACH TEXTURE in your Dirty Pictures library to that thumbnail in order to give you a basic preview of what your image might look like with the texture applied.  Then, once you have selected the texture that you want, it automatically applies the texture according to the presets that you have for that particular texture.  For example, there are some textures that work best when blended in multiply mode.  Dirty Pictures saves your preferences for each texture and will automatically apply the blending mode and opacity that you like best for that texture.

Here is a screen shot of the slick interface:

And here are a few images with those textures applied:

Post by Michelle Turner, Maine Wedding Photographer and Maine Portrait Photographer
Tags: Maine Wedding Photography, Totally Rad Actions, Dirty Pictures Review, Photoshop Actions and Textures

I am kicking off the Michelle Turner Photography seminars in two weeks (the first seminar is in Maine, with other seminars in Boston, Charleston, and South Dakota).  To celebrate that and the release of my book, Wedding Photography Now (which is available from Barnes and Noble or Amazon), I am kicking off a series of posts for photographers!

Every week I get a number of emails from other photographers asking me about how I process my photographs. To be honest, a lot of the magic happens in camera- it’s about finding the right light, composing and exposing the photograph correctly, and using the right lens/focal length/aperture combination to produce those beautiful, dreamy, out-of focus backgrounds.

However, I also do a fair amount of post-processing to achieve the look that I am going for. I use a lot of my own actions and textures, but I also use some that are available for purchase from other photographers, and I thought that I would share those here! Remember, the key is not having a lot of actions, but rather knowing how and when to apply them.

This photograph, for example, had the following steps applied:

A) Color/Contrast correction in Adobe Lightroom 2 (Beta) and a midbump.

B) Yin/Yang from the Boutwell’s Totally Rad Action set.

C) The Shadow/Highlight filter in Photoshop CS3.

D) Big Run Color from Parker Pfister’s Action set.

E) The clone tool to manage highlights.

F) Jesh de Rox’s textures, set to overlay and masked out on their faces.

G) Kevin Kubota’s Magic Sharp action, applied selectively rather than globally.

A) Color/Contrast correction in Adobe Lightroom 2 (Beta) and a midbump.

B) Yin/Yang from the Boutwell’s Totally Rad Action set.

C) The Shadow/Highlight filter in Photoshop CS3.

D) Tilt Shift from Parker Pfister’s Action set, masked out.

E) Red Leaf Vintage Textures, set to Multiply and masked out.

F) Black and White conversion with one of Jeff Ascough’s actions (simply the best black and white out there).

G) Jesh de Rox’s textures, set to overlay and masked out on their faces.

H) Kevin Kubota’s Magic Sharp action, applied selectively rather than globally.

I’ve had a lot of questions about this next photograph, which had very little done to it:

A) Color/Contrast correction in Adobe Lightroom 2 (Beta).

B) Vintage Cross Process with Red Leaf Studios actions.

C) Kevin Kubota’s Magic Sharp action, applied selectively rather than globally.

Arguably one of my favorite photographs:

A) Color/Contrast correction in Adobe Lightroom 2 (Beta) and a midbump.

B) Yin/Yang from the Boutwell’s Totally Rad Action set.

C) The Shadow/Highlight filter in Photoshop CS3.

D) Tilt Shift from Parker Pfister’s Action set, masked out.

E) Big Run Color from Parker Pfister’s Action set.

F) iCorrect Portrait to bring back the skin tones.

G) A fair amount of cloning and healing in Photoshop CS3.

H) Jesh de Rox’s textures, at least three, but I may have used four different textures here, including one of my own.

I) This photograph is a large print in my studio. To blow it up, I used iDC photography’s resizing action.

J) Kevin Kubota’s Magic Sharp action, applied selectively rather than globally.