Photo enhancement and photo manipulation are, essentially, two different disciplines in Photoshop. The concept of enhancing an image is to improve or change the quality without adding or deleting anything.
We have previously looked at photo manipulation tutorials for Photoshop, so today we are bringing you a collection of photo enhancement tutorials, most of which will change the look of your image slightly, very dramatically or somewhere in between. The majority of these tutorials use non-destructive methods of enhancement, such as adjustment layers, but always remember to work on a copy of your image so that you retain the original.
Photo Enhancement Tutorials for Photoshop
Enhancing Your Images in Photoshop
A simple technique to enhance your most ordinary photos.
Enhancing Photos with High Pass Filter
Learn how to enhance an image in Photoshop using the High Pass filter and blending modes.
How To Create a Movie Style Photo Effect in Photoshop
Learn how to retouch a photo to create a cool cinematic movie effect with high contrast and blueish tones.
Creating Depth of Field Using the Lens Blur Filter
Learn how to use the Lens Blur Filter in Photoshop to add depth of field selectively in an image.
Note: When you are instructed to switch back to the Layers from the Channels, do ensure you have clicked on the RGB channel before doing so, or you will only see the Alpha 1 channel.
Create a Lomo Effect in 3 Simple Steps
Lomo-effect images typically feature unique coloring, high contrast, soft focus and dark vignettes. Learn how to produce your own ‘Lomo styled’ photos in 3 simple steps in Photoshop.
Antique a Photo Using Textures
Discover how easy it is to give an antique look to a photo in Photoshop, using adjustment layers and textures.
Adding and Enhancing Light Rays in Your Photos
You can create some really fun effects using filters in Photoshop. This tutorial walks you through one such effect – adding light rays to a photo.
Create a Dragan Style Portrait Effect
A photo effect based on the work of Andrzej Dragan whose portraits have a very high contrast and color style all their own.
Using HDR Toning in Photoshop to Create a Fantasy Forest Scene
In this tutorial you will learn the process for utilizing the HDR Toning feature of Photoshop introduced in CS5, in combination with a few lighting effects.
Instagram Your Images Using Photoshop
This is a quick tutorial to show you how to achieve the ‘Nashville’ Instagram effect in Photoshop.
How to Make Instagram Filters in Photoshop: Earlybird
This guide will show you how to add a really cool Instagram-inspired effect to your photos using Photoshop.
Instagram Quick Effect in Photoshop
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a quick Instagram effect in Photoshop.
How to Create ‘Toaster’ Instagram Effect
Learn how to recreate the Instagram ‘Toaster’ Effect in Photoshop.
How to Create the Instagram Gothic Effect
Another Instagram effect tutorial.
How to Create the Apollo Instagram Effect
Learn how to create this gently desaturated, green-toned Instagram effect.
Instagram ‘1977’ Effect
This tutorial will show you how to recreate the 1977 Instagram effect in Photoshop, to add a retro/vintage style color to your photos.
Instagram Poprocket Effect
This tutorial will show you how to recreate the Poprocket Instagram effect in Photoshop, adding a colorful retro look to your images.
Instagram X-Pro II Effect
Create this effect using one curves layer to deepen the blue tones of your images.
How to Give Your Photos a Vintage Polaroid Effect
Follow this step by step guide to give your photos a cool vintage Polaroid style effect in Photoshop.
Add Quick Effects to Your Personal Photos
This is a beginners-intermediate tutorial which can be followed by Adobe Elements users as well as Photoshop users.
Create a Trendy Retro Photo Effect
Follow this quick Photoshop tutorial to easily add a retro effect to your images in 3 simple steps. An action with the curves settings is also available.
How to Give Your Photos a Cool Retro Analog Effect
Back in the days of analog photography, imperfections were part of the job. Color washes, light leaks, vignettes and blurs were all common problems. While these problems don’t affect digital cameras, we can recreate the cool effects in Photoshop to achieve that cool lo-fi retro effect, and here you can learn how.
Apply a Color Effect to a Photo
Learn how to apply a strong tint of color to a photo (in this case green) with Photoshop.
Create a Wet Plate Photo Effect in Photoshop
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to recreate the wet plate photography effect.
Use Split Frequency Healing to Retouch a Photo in Photoshop
Split Frequency Healing is a technique you can use in Photoshop that will allow you to retouch photos without affecting the photo’s respective tone or texture. In this tutorial you will learn how to use this technique in your workflow.
Colorizing Images with Gradients in Photoshop
In this Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to add complex colorizing effects to images using custom gradients.
Non-Destructive Infrared Glow Effect
Learn how to quickly add an infrared glow effect to an image using Smart Filters and adjustment layers.
Folds and Creases Effect
Learn how to add folds and creases to a photo as if it had been folded and unfolded like a map.
High Key Glow Effect
Learn how to apply a glow to the highlights of an image. This effect works particularly well with wedding or other portraits to add a romantic, magical look.
Split Toning Black and White Photos
Learn how to achieve a subtle effect by adding a color tint to the highlights and a different color tint to the shadows of your image.
Photoshop Watercolor Painting Effect
Learn how to easily make a photo look more like a watercolor painting. This effect works best on images where maintaining rich colors and strong contrast is more important then keeping any fine details.
Old-Fashioned Hand-Tinted Photo Effect
Learn how to easily create an old-fashioned, hand-tinted photo effect in just a few minutes.
Edgy Style Photo Treatment
A really cool photo treatment that will give an edgy, surreal look and feel to a regular photo.
Gritty, Overprocessed Photo Effect
Learn how to give a photo a gritty, overprocessed look to it with extreme levels of contrast and sharpening, noise and washed out colors.
Retouching a Studio Portrait
This Photoshop tutorial will show you the techniques used to give an already good photo a stronger impact.
Give a Photo a Complete Glamour Makeover
Learn how to transform a regular, every day photo into a real glamour shot. You will learn how to retouch a model’s face and subtly manipulate her hair, and add attractive lighting and 3D effects.
Add Dynamic Lighting to a Flat Photograph
In this tutorial you will be shown how to spice up a fairly dull and flat photograph. It’s very easy and fast to go from flat photo to a uniquely lit style.
Producing Night Vision Effect
Learn how to produce a night vision effect, making the image green and grainy.
Action Zoom Blurring Effect
In the Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to add some action and a sense of motion to a photo with a zoom blur effect.
Create a Pop Art Like Photo Effect
An easy tutorial to make an abstract effect on any photo for many uses.
Comic Book Effect
Create an exciting comic from photos using filter effects. This tutorial will teach you how to turn a normal highway photo into an intense action scene.
Creating Realistic Snow in Photoshop
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a realistic snow effect.
Add a Realistic Rainbow to a Photo with Photoshop
Learn how to incorporate a rainbow in any image.
Easy Digital Painting Illustration
This tutorial will walk you through the simple steps used to turn a regular photograph into an interesting digital painting illustration.
Polaroid Montage Tutorial
Create a polaroid montage from one image using Photoshop’s built-in effects and a free action.
How to Create Realistic Tears
Use this quick tutorial to create tears on a dry-eyed person.
Conclusion
Hopefully you will have found some useful photo enhancement tutorials here. It is always important that you start with a good quality image to apply filters and adjustment layers. Repairing poor quality images involves different techniques altogether, and rarely works perfectly.
Do you usually enhance images for the web? Do you have your own methods, do you use actions or tutorials and are there any tutorials that offer great techniques that we have missed from this list?
Please share your links and comments in the section below.