Photoshop Help: Fugly Flash Photos!

     If you own a regular digital camera like me, then you probably hate flash photos as much as I do. I own a Sony DSC-W290 and it takes beautiful pictures in natural lighting. The photos taken with its flash, however, are meh.

     My camera's flash makes anyone look dark and oily. I used simple logic and found a way to make digital camera flash photos more decent. I want to share it with you guys 'cause you might find this helpful. I'm not an expert at all so please don't expect magazine-worthy results or something. Since I discovered these layers, I've been using them on all my fugly flash photos.

The ~final product~

     I'll start off by showing you the final result. I might look a little too powdery but I'd rather look powdery than this:

     

This is the original picture. Meh.

      Let's get this tutorial thingy started!

Important notes:

• I used Adobe Photoshop CS3.
• 4/5 of these layers are ADJUSTMENT LAYERS (Layer >> New Adjustment Layer). It's better to create adjustment layers because, well, you can adjust them later on in case you're not satisfied with the results.

STEP 1: Lessen brightness and contrast. (Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Brightness/Contrast).

     Obviously, flash photos are bright and they create lotsa contrast so let's decrease 'em! Decrease brightness by 20 and contrast by 50.

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STEP 2: Increase Saturation. (Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Hue/Saturation).

     I honestly don't know why I did this but hey, it helped so just do it lol.

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STEP 3: Curves, curves, curves! (Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Curves...).

     I saved these curves as a preset, that's why I have "Old Look_Mod" as my preset. Yours should say "None." 

     Anyway, make your red channel look like that^

     Make your blue channel look like that^

     Make your green channel look like that^

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STEP 4: Another Hue/Saturation layer. (Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Hue/Saturation).

     Click on the check box beside the word colorize to check it (lol). Set hue to 35 and saturation to 12. Then, set the opacity of the entire layer to 40%

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STEP 5: White Gradient. (Layer >> New Fill Layer >> Gradient...).

     To open the Gradient Editor, click on the colored drop-down bar beside the word "Gradient" on the window that opens after you click "OK." (Uh...what?).

     I saved that gradient as a preset, too. That's why it's name is "White Light." Yours should be "Color to Transparent" or something like that. Set the colors to white and just follow what my settings up there^ are.

     You can adjust the direction of your gradient if you like. Set the blending mode of the entire layer to SOFT LIGHT.

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We're done!

     In the end, you'd have something that looks like this:

DISCLAIMER:

I edited out part of that stupid line I had below my right eye. I also added color to my pale lips. Those are the only additional edits.

     I hope this was helpful to you guys! I suggest you save these layers as a .psd file or create an action so you don't have to go through the whole process of creating these layers. Because they are adjustment layers, you can adjust them to your liking.