Phoenix Imaging

Vaseline effects in PhotoShop

We've all seen those images produced by smearing Vaseline onto an old skylight or UV filter to produce a streaky, blurred, impressionistic image. Well now we can do avoid getting greasy fingers on the camera or lens by doing it in PhotoShop. Using this image I took back in 1997 of Aspens on Hart Prairie in northern Arizona, I wanted to produce a streaky "Vaseline" effect whilst leaving the light tree trunks on the left untouched, so here's how I did it

1. First I wanted to boost the contrast so I selected Image -> Adjustments -> Auto Contrast (fig.1)

2. Next I tried to improve the colour saturation and balance by using Image -> Adjustments -> Auto Colour (fig. 2)

3. Now, before we can apply the Vaseline effect we need a new layer to apply it to, so we duplicate the layer (fig. 3)

4. It's time to apply the "Vaseline" effect, we do this by applying the Motion Blur filter (Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur) to the duplicate layer, setting the angle to 90 degrees to keep it vertical (though you can adapt this in keeping with your image) and a large enough Distance value to streak the image severely (I chose 50 pixels for this 800 pixel high image) (fig .4)

5. This gives a vastly overdone effect, but we will now start to decrease this. First we switch off the streaked duplicate layer (by clicking on the eye symbol for the layer in the layers palette) so that we can only see the background layer. Now we make a "luminosity selection" by holding down the SHIFT key whilst simultaneously pressing CTRL + ALT + ~. (fig. 5)

6. Switching the streaked duplicate layer back on, we now apply this selection to the layer as a Layer Mask by selecting Layer -> Add Layer Mask -> Hide Selection. (fig. 6)

7. Now we want to increase the contrast of this layer mask. We do this by switching to the channel palette and selecting the Background copy Layer mask channel. With this selected we then choose Image -> Adjustments -> Levels and selecting the Black Eye dropper tool, we click on the lightest part of the mask we want to make black (i.e. where we will not see the blurred layer) (fig. 7) I have indicated with a red circle where I chose to click

8. Now, without closing the Levels control panel, we select the white eye dropper and click on the darkest part of the layer mask we wish to be white (i.e. where the blurred image will be fully visible) (fig. 8) Again I have marked with a red circle where I chose to click

9. We should now see the Black and White points (marked by the Black and White triangles respectively) pulled much closer to the centre of the Levels histogram (fig. 9). Once you are happy with this click OK, then select the RGB channel and switch back to the Layers palette from the channels palette.

10. At this point, I felt the tree trunks to the left needed to be a little sharper, so I again switched off the streaked duplicate layer (remember to click on the eye) then clicked on the background layer (on the thumbnail, not the eye) to make it active. I now applied a little Unsharp Mask (Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask) to the background layer (I chose Amount=100, Radius=0.5, Threshold=2, but you may need to play with the Amount & Radius to find the correct values for your image) (fig. 10)

11. Now, after ensuring both layers are switched on (the eye should be visible for both layers), we can flatten all the layers down to one layer (Layer -> Flatten image) (fig. 11) . . .. Job Done!

12. However, looking again at this image, I felt it may work better in portrait format rather than landscape format to emphasise the height of the trees. I therefore decided to resize the image and alter the proportions (Image -> adjust -> Image Size). Ensuring that the resample image box is ticked, but the constrain proportions box is not, I reduced the width of the image (to 75%) whilst increasing the height of the image (133.33%). (fig. 12)

And here's the final image.