Layers Upon Layers: Mixed Media Art

Cyanotypes with Photoshop

by Cyndi on February 19th, 2008

Technique Tuesday!

If you don’t have a sample of a real cyanotype blue to use, here’s a fairly decent way to find one. You’ll need to play around with the sliders until the color looks good to you…there was quite a bit of variation in the color, so don’t feel that it has to match one you’ve seen exactly.

1. Open your image in Photoshop and duplicate it.
2. Open the channel mixer, tick the Monochrome box, and play with the sliders. I like to have blue up around 80 or 90, red from 10 to 20 to add noise, and green at 0. Lower the contrast too.
3. Open up a curves adjustment layer, clipped to the previous layer. Pull the line up somewhat for blue and down somewhat for red. Mess around with the settings until you like the overall color and contrast.
4. Select an oval around your main subject. Select the inverse and feather it.  Use the levels adjustment to darken the edges of the photo.
5. Enlarge the canvas by adding a thin border of white all around the image.
6. Add a new layer and create a border using a dry brush with black. Move this layer underneath the background copy layer when it’s finished.
7. Add stains. Add a new layer to the top and paint on yellowed stains using the Color Blending mode.

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POSTED IN: Digital Art, Photography, Technique Tuesday, Tutorials & Techniques