I want to show you some of the beauty of blending modes.
I made a copy of the original layer, added gaussian blur (value 8) and changed the blending modes. Especially the blend mode darken in combination with Gaussian blur creates a very interesting effect.

Gaussian blur 8 - Blending mode darken
This effect can only be achieved using gaussian blur!

Or combine different blending modes, in this case I replaced the eyes from a darken layer with the eyes from a color dodge layer using 55% opacity. (both layers have gaussian blur 8 applied)

Joy Foraker

Good tips , nice examples. This is the kind of demo's I need. Say and show. Otherwise I get a little lost in the technique.

And- I very often forget about blending modes. Good reminder to think possibilities using them.
Good work
X'ks

Koula

Thanks G

Great Tip...and Halle Berry is just toooooo beautiful...

I totally agree about Hale [righton]

Joy Foraker

Something for the girls

UglyKaterpillar

Hey no fair! I tried this and I still don't look anything like Halle. Oh well. At least it cleared up my skin & gave me fewer wrinkles

I've always hated this picture. No sleep the night before & 10lbs of makeup isn't how I typically look, so I thought I'd have fun with it.

The first is the original scan after a few tweaks (lousy scanner) The second is the one with Gaussian Blur = 8 + Darken. The other 2, I just kept on playing with blend modes, contrast and levels. Some details were lost after I re-sized the pic & .jpg'd it, but anything is better than the original!

Joy Foraker

Wow, beautiful. Halley eat your heart out! I like all the techniques, but the subject is best.
Joy

UglyKaterpillar

Aww Joy, you're sweet for saying so. Now if only I had Photoshop in my makeup bag, I could edit the wrinkles & stuff for real. I would save thousand$ on future cosmetic surgery! [bustagut]