Being a photographer certainly isn’t an easy job and there are a range of things that you will have to do with your photos even 0once they have been taken. It doesn’t matter whether you have the best camera available; you will always be able to make your photos look better. One of the best programs for doing this is of course Photoshop. We have compiled a list of 10 of the best plug-ins and filters to help you. Enjoy!

1. Black and White Studio

This is a great plugin that actually turns Photoshop into a great darkroom for black and white photographs. Click here to get it.

2. Portraiture 2

This is a fantastic plugin that gives you enhanced masking capabilities and allows you to really make portraits look fantastic using contract and other variables. Click here to get it.

3. Bokeh

This is a fantastic plugin that actually allows you to get that fantastic tilt shift look to your photos without having the lens. Click here to get it.

4. Nik Sharpener Pro 2

This is a great plugin that helps you to sharpen things up in Photoshop. It works well. Click here to get it.

5. Topaz Adjust Plugin

This is a great plugin that actually allows you to get HDR like images and helps you to fine tune photographs. Click here to get it.

6. Retina Plugin

This plugin actually takes a photo and adjusts the contract, brightness and other aspects of the photo automatically to make it look the best possible. Click here to get it.

7. Power Retouche

This is a great plugin that allows you to adjust the saturation of a photo without fragmenting the image. Click here to get it.

8. AutoMask

Masking is a time consuming thing in Photoshop and this AutoMask plugin really takes the effort out. Click here to get it.

9. Focus Filter

This is a fantastic filter that will actually allow you to change the focus of a photo after its been taken. Click here to get it.

10. Beryl Red-Eye

This fantastic plugin really helps you to remove the red-eye on photographs in Photoshop without any effort at all. Click here to get it.

I’ll be working on the 2nd image. Base on that image, I start a new document 640×480.

Now open the mud image up, on the dirt image, do a CTRL+A to select all, then go to the new document you just created and press CTRL+V to paste the image.

The cracks are dark, so we’ll invert the image so it becomes white, this will give it a better explosion effect. so go to Image->Adjustment->Invert (or press CTRL+I).

Now use the eliptical marquee tool and make a large round selection on the image. Hold SHIFT while you create the selection to make a perfect round circle.

Click to view larger image

Now go to Select->Inverse,

Then hit Delete so you are left witha circle from the mud image. DO NOT DESELECT YET.

Click to view larger image

Now, while you still got your selection, go to SELECT->INVERSE again to select the shape.

Now go to Filter->Distort->Spherize. Set amount to 100%. Then do it again, this time, 50%. You can now deselect.

Now, lets fill the background layer (the layer underneath the mud layer) with black.

Then go to Layer->Flatten Image

Now go to Filter->Sharpen->unsharp Mask.

Amount: 500%. Radius:
1.7px. Threshold: 122 levels

- Go to Filter->Distort->Polar
Co-ordinates.

Options: Polar to Rectangular. VIEW

Go to: Image->Rotate Canvas->90CW. VIEW

Apply: Filter->Stylize->Wind

Method: Wind. Direction:
From the right. Hit CTRL+F to reapply. VIEW

Go to: Image->Rotate Canvas->90CCW. VIEW

Finally, apply Filter->Distort->Polar Coordinates.

Options: Rectangular to Polar.

There you go, now all you do is just play around with colors, by either using Image->Hue and Saturation, or Image->Color Balance.

I use color balance in the image below.

This tutorial will work for basically and image with textures such as cracks. Here are a few variations.

Before
—–>                        After.