Rob Trek Forum

As an old time Photoshop user, I forget that not everyone knows the fast basics. The 2 photos attached are an example of a fast Photoshop. It is overdone to show what is happening. I used an jpeg I had to do the adjustment. First, I duplicated the jpeg twice in Photoshop. I set one layer to Linear Dodge @ 20% FILL (my default in the action and FILL not opacity)) and the other layer to Linear Burn @ 15% FILL. Then I merged layers and and saved it. This is a rather plain photo overdone so you can easily see the effect. Once the the contrast is set with the fill, you can use opacity to make it more subtle and not overdone like this. Those who shoot jpegs and process may find some use in this. This works with almost every photo editor. It quickly gives the digital look Instagram users seem to like. The blend modes are much of why I use Photoshop more than Lightroom.

This is very good technic I use this a lot on Gimp with multiply, screen and overlay blending modes. Most of the time it yield better result than the tone adjustment of Raw editors specially if your editing JPEG and it only takes a few minutes to get the desired result.

I used to use multiply, screen. The reason I quit was that they do not support fill. I think I get better results from using blend modes where I can use fill and then fine tune it with the opacity. I replaced them with linear dodge and linear burn. For the same reason I replaced overlay with hard mix. Many times I have to go way down on the fill (15% for hard mix is my starting point). To seriously edit a photo, I do multiple layers each one applied to a different luminosity either with blend if or luminosity masks. All of which is overkill for something someone will look at on a phone. Still, I like doing it right.