Before you duplicate a layer you should always ask yourself: Can I do the same thing with adjustment layers. I’d say almost 90% of the time when using blend modes you’d be better off using adjustment layers instead of duplicating the layer and then applying the effect.

Here’s an example of what not to do. This is a video tutorial on You Tube showing you how to whiten eyes and teeth.

Obviously I don’t have the same images so I took a picture of my son and apply the same effects plus one more to make the eyes pop even more.

Here’s the picture without any editing. The whites in the eyes look a bit drab. The actual file size of the image on disk was 2.32MB. Opened in Photoshop it becomes 28.8MB

If I were to make a duplicate layer look at the file size increase!

Now if I remove the duplicate layer and apply a curves adjustment layer to the image look at the change! It’s identical!

If you apply the screen blend mode you will see the exact same effect as you would have if you applied the screen effect to the duplicated layer. Let’s do it now.

As you can see the blend mode also doesn’t add any size to the image.

Much like the video shown above if you make a black mask on the layer. (Hides everything) and then pain in the effect by using a white brush you can apply the screen blend mode to only the parts you actually want to use.

AFTER

BEFORE

All the changes only added .9MB in total.

One more thing you can do to really make the eyes pop is by adding a little contrast. Again you can do it with blend modes. Softlight generally gives good contrast results that you can dial back.

Apply a Warming filter Adjustment layer (85) to the image and then apply the blend mode “softlight”. Below is a Before and After of the Softlight applied above the screen blend mode layer.

AFTER (END RESULT)

BEFORE

Again notice the file size is only up to 30.6MB

Here’s an Advanced Photoshop trick that might help you out one day. The trick allows you to target only the most over exposed sections of the picture. This will ensure the rest of the tone and quality in the rest of the picture remain intact.

Once you have the picture in question open click on the Channels tab (normally bottom right hand side in Photoshop).

Holding the Control key down double click the “RGB” layer. I’ve marked with the screenshot with a red “X” where you should click. This will allow you to select ONLY the lightest areas of the picture.

Hit “Ctrl+J” to take the selection you just made and make a copy of it to another layer.

If you click back to the “layers” tab select “Multiply” to darken these areas. If the effect is a bit much you can adjust the “opacity” to your liking. In this example I pulled the effect back by setting the opacity of “86%”.

If this doesn’t bring back enough detail and you want to darken things a bit more just make a copy of the top most layer. Keep copying the layer until you get the image exposure where you want. Hope this helps!

I was reading some forums on 3D training in Adobe Photoshop. I stumbled on a real gem! A woman who works for Adobe released a FREE eGuide on Photoshop 3D training! If you are reading this blog entry on your iPad all you have to do is click this link:

Download FREE Photoshop 3D Training Guide

And Tell your iPad to download and install the app. It’s an app but they could have really made it an ePub book. The detail is great and if you are wanting to learn more how to work with 3D in Photoshop I highly recommend this iPad resource.

The app is around 94MB I believe.