Adobe Photoshop Tutorial: Extreme Contrast Photo Effect

Step 10: Add A "Curves" Adjustment Layer And Set Its Blend Mode To "Multiply"

The main effect is finished at this point, but we're just going to darken the edges a bit to enhance it even further. Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Then select Curves from the list:

When the Curves dialog box appears, simply click OK to exit out of it. We don't need to make any changes. All we need is the Curves adjustment layer itself in the Layers palette, which we're going to use to darken the image. To do that, go up to the blend mode options at the top of the Layers palette once again and change the blend mode for the Curves layer from "Normal" to Multiply:

As soon as you change the blend mode, your image will appear darker:

Step 11: Drag Out A Large Oval Selection Inside The Image

Grab the Elliptical Marquee tool from the Tools palette (it's hiding behind the Rectangular Marquee tool by default) and drag out a large oval selection inside the document, making it so large that the edges extend out past the left and right of the image:

Step 12: Fill The Selection With Black On The Curve Adjustment's Layer Mask

With the Curves adjustment layer still selected, press D on your keyboard to reset your Foreground and Background colors. Normally this would result in your Foreground color being black and your Background color being white, but because the layer mask on the Curves adjustment layer is currently selected (you can see that it has a highlight border around it to indicate that it's selected), we get the exact opposite. White becomes your Foreground color and black becomes your Background color whenever you reset your colors with a layer mask selected.

So with black as your Background color and the Curves adjustment layer selected in the Layers palette, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Backspace (Win) / Command+Delete (Mac) to fill the selection with black. You're not covering the image itself with black. Instead, you're filling the area on the Curve adjustment's layer mask with black, which will cause the Curves adjustment to be hidden inside the area you selected, allowing the original lighter version of the image below it to show through. Only the corners of the image remain darker:

Step 13: Soften The Edges With The "Gaussian Blur" Filter

All that's left to do now is to soften the transition between the lighter image in the center and the darker edges in the corners, and we can do that with the "Gaussian Blur" filter. Go up to the Filter menu, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur to bring up the Gaussian Blur dialog box:

As I mentioned, I'm using a low resolution image for this tutorial, so for me, a Radius value of about 50 pixels blurs the edges out nicely. If you're using a high resolution image, you'll probably want to use a setting of 150 pixels or higher. The idea is simply to blur out the edges so they transition nicely from darker in the corners to lighter as you move towards the center of the image. Keep an eye on the image itself to see a preview of the blurring effect as you're dragging the slider bar at the bottom.

When you're happy with the blur amount, click OK to exit out of the Gaussian Blur dialog box, and you're done!

Here once again is my original image:

And here is the finished "extreme contrast" effect:

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