I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been doing some experimenting with channels in Photoshop lately.  This Scott Kelby book which I recently found at the library is inspiring my adventurousness.

It’s a great book for people who use the big Photoshop – lots of useful tips and not too many funky effects that you’ll never use.  Even for those of you using Photoshop Elements, remember that you can find Channels actions that will add channel functions into Elements.  Of course, I had those actions a long time and never knew what to do with them. . . .

The book inspired me to create some Elements-compatible actions that will give you great effects by sneaking Photoshop Channels functions into Elements.

The first action was my noise reducing action from last week.  And today, I have a color pop action that replicates Photoshop’s Lab mode channels in Elements and uses them to boost the colors.

Here is a picture before I ran the new Lab Color Boost action:

It’s a beautiful picture even untouched.  I didn’t take it, but I would have been proud to!  Here is the after:

Before running my Lab Color Pop action, I started with the DPM Defog Action.  Then, I used Nik Software’s Dfine.  (Side Note:  I’m just learning how much Nik’s Dfine can do to clarify and reduce noise.  You’ll hear more about this next week.  If you’re interested in checking it out in the meantime, you can download a free trial.  Or use discount code DPM for a 15% off coupon.)

I finished the editing by running a double pass of the Unsharp Mask and adding a vignette.

Follow the rainbow to download this action for yourself.

If you like this action, please use the Share & Enjoy link below to Stumble Upon, Twitter, Digg or Facebook about it!  Thank you!

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