Adding A Little Punch 
In the last issue we presented a technique for Adding Drama to an image.  If you experimented with it, you quickly found that it was well suited to broad, expansive images, such as landscapes and seascapes, but a little too strong for portraits, family scenes, and the like.  Is there an alternative?  Less dramatic then Adding Drama -- maybe just adding A Little Punch?

The answer, of course, is yes.  It's a combination of the One-Click Sharpening technique of our very first issue, to bring out tonal contrast, and the Soft-Light blending mode, to bring out color contrast.  I use it so often that I've made an action for it and attached it to function key F10.

Here's how to make your own.  In Photoshop, open an existing image and begin to record an action: name it "Adding Punch" and attach it to function key F10 (or whatever you like). 

From the Layers menu select "Duplicate Layer," name the new layer "Tonal Contrast," and hit OK. 

From the Filter menu select "Sharpen" and then "Unsharp Mask..."  In the resulting dialog, type 20% for the Amount, 100 for the Radius in pixels, and 3 for the Threshold level; then hit OK.

Now comes the peculiar part.  From the Layers palette select the "Tonal Contrast" layer you just made, and in the Opacity box type 70 for the percentage.  (If you use the little scroll bar you will generate a large number of "Set current layer" action elements , one for each position of the scroll bar.  The recommended way generates only two, one for the "7" keystroke and another for the final "70".)

You're almost done; only the color contrast is left, and it's a standard method that uses the Soft Light blend mode.

From the Layers menu select "New Adjustment Layer" and then "Levels..."  In the resulting dialog, type "Color Contrast" for the name, select "Soft Light" for the Mode, and type 50 for the Opacity; then hit OK, and hit OK again.

Finally, press Ctrl + E twice to merge the two levels, and stop the recording.

Let's see an example of what happens when you use this action.  Below you see (1) the original image; (2) the result when the Adding Punch action is stopped after finishing the Tonal Contrast layer; and (3) the result when the entire action is run.

You can see that the image gets a little more punch, becomes a little more vibrant.  And, since the Adding Punch action merges all its layers at the end, it can be reapplied as often as desired, just by pressing function key F10 again (or clicking on the action).  Here's a sample of repeated application:

Generally speaking one application is sufficient.  I hardly ever repeat it, even though I do use the action very often.

But the layer technique was used so that you can adjust the effect, if you want.  Just go back two states in the History Palette (or press Ctrl+Alt+Z twice) and the layers will be visible again.  The Layers Palette will look something like the image on the right.  You can change the opacity of the Color Contrast layer to get a very strong effect.  The Tonal Contrast layer has the Unsharp Mask result, and again, you can soften or strengthen it by changing the opacity of that layer.

That gives you total flexibility, but is rarely necessary.  An easier way is simply to duplicate the background layer before starting the action.  That way only the Background Copy layer is affected, and you can simply change the opacity of that layer to the amount that looks right to you.

To make life simple for SONOPP folks, who rarely have enough time to play around with creating actions, you can download the action by simply clicking here.