Create Cool Photo Effect with Streaks Pattern and Patchwork Filter

From the only eighteen steps of this tutorial you will learn how to edit image in Adobe Photoshop with the help of Patchwork and Glowing Edges filters as well as Streaks Pattern, Gradient and Adjustment layers. Enjoy! :)

STEP 1

Your first task is to download this Yellow Blooms photo which is my own photo and unrestricted stock. Click on it to get it in High Resolution, then right click on it and select Save As to put it in your folder.

Apply Filters and Streaks Pattern to Give the Photo Texture and Relief

STEP 2

Open the Yellow Blooms photo in Adobe Photoshop. It will appear as locked Background layer in your Layers panel. Double click on its name to activate New Layer dialog box. Insert Yellow Blooms in Name field to rename your first layer. It will be unlocked too and become editable.

Now press Ctrl+G or drag Yellow Blooms layer to the folder icon at the bottom of Layers pane. Thus you'll create a group. Rename it to Flowers.

While your Yellow Blooms layer is selected, press three times Ctrl+J to make three duplicates of it. Rename Yellow Blooms copy layer to Patchwork, rename also Yellow Blooms copy 2 layer to Glowing Edges and at last rename Yellow Blooms copy 3 layer to Streaks Pattern. Please, have a look at the screenshot below to compare your Layers pane with mine.

STEP 3

Switch off the upper two layers in Flowers group and select only Patchwork layer. Navigate to the Menu bar, then choose Filter, Filter Gallery to open the filters.

STEP 4

When Filter Gallery window pops up on your screen, select Texture type of filters then click on Patchwork Filter swatch. Leave Square Size option to 10 and Relief to 18 then click on OK button to apply the filter.

Your work will look the same as the example on the following screenshot, after applying Patchwork Filter.

STEP 5

Change the Blend Mode of Patchwork layer to Lighten.

STEP 6

Now switch on and select Glowing Edges layer then go again to Filter, Filter Gallery.

STEP 7

In Filter Gallery click on Stylize Filter drop down menu then select Glowing Edges Filter swatch. Leave the Edge Width to 5, Edge Brightness to 15 and Smoothness to 13.

This is how your photographic masterpiece will look so far after applying the Glowing Edges Filter:

STEP 8

Change Blend Mode of Glowing Edges layer to Subtract and reduce its Opacity to 60%.

STEP 9

Switch on and select Streaks Pattern layer then change its Blend Mode to Soft Light.

STEP 10

Double click on Streaks Pattern layer to activate Layer Style dialog box, check Pattern Overlay Layer Style and modify its settings as follows:

Blend Mode: Soft Light

Opacity: 100%

Pattern: Streaks (100 by 100 pixels, RGB mode)

Scale: 1000%

Link with Layer: checked.

Below is shown the result of applying the Streaks Pattern. With this we finished our work in Flowers group.

Add Gradient and Adjustment Layers to Inprove the Colors and Sharpness of the Photo

STEP 11

Create a New Layer on top of Layers panel and name it Spectrum Gradient then press Ctrl+G to place it in a group. Rename the newly created group to Colors.

Keep the new layer highlighted, then press G or select Gradient Tool. In the Options bar select Spectrum Gradient from the Gradient Picker, click also on Radial Gradient icon then drag with the instrument from the middle to any corner of the canvas to colorize it. You will get this outcome:

STEP 12

Change the Blend Mode of Spectrum Gradient layer to Color and lower its Opacity to 70%. You see that both yellow blooms appear unnaturally colored in blue and pink. We'll get rid of those color shades in the next step.

STEP 13

With Spectrum Gradient layer selected, click on Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of Layers panel. After the mask is added to the layer you will see that Foreground/Background Color will automatically be changed to Black/White.

Now grab Brush tool and choose Soft Round Brush from the Brush Preset Picker. Set its Size to 400px.

While the Layer Mask thumbnail is selected, brush over the yellow blooms to remove the blue and pink colors of the gradient. Your image should look like this:

STEP 14

In this and the following steps we are going to improve the colors of our edited photo using Adjustment Layers.

While Spectrum Gradient layer is highlighted, navigate to the Menu bar and select Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Color Balance.

STEP 15

Now you should adjust the settings of Color Balance Properties as follows:

Midtones:

Cyan-Red: -20

Magenta-Green: -67

Yellow-Blue: -54

Shadows:

Cyan-Red: +8

Magenta-Green: -29

Yellow-Blue: -78

Highlights:

Cyan-Red: -10

Magenta-Green: -4

Yellow-Blue: +9.

This is the outcome of adding Color balance Adjustment Layer. The image looks sharpened but the colors are too vivid. We'll improve the image with the help of one more Adjustment Layer in the next step.

STEP 16

While the Color Balance layer is selected, navigate again to the Menu bar and choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Black and White. When the Properties box pops up on your screen, select Maximum White from Presets drop down menu. Leave all other settings as by default.

This is how the image will look after the Black and White Adjustment layer have been added:

STEP 17

Now lower Opacity of Black and White Adjustment Layer to 25% and with this we completed our work on editing the photo.

Compare my Layers panel shown on the screenshot below with yours. You should have these two groups of layers:

1. Flowers group which contains four layers: Yellow Blooms, Patchwork, Glowing Edges and Streaks Pattern and
2. Colors group with one Spectrum Gradient and two Adjustment layers (Color Balance and Black & White in it.

STEP 18

This is the result saved in .jpg format.

Hope you like this short tut and find awesome the techniques I have used for photo edit. Thank you for reading and God bless! :)