Tutorial: Create Fujifilm Velvia Film Effect with Photoshop

Hello guys/gals, long time no see.  Hope you all had a good time this Christmas and Santa was kind and generous.

Today I would like show you a quick tutorial on how to create a Fujifilm Velvia film effect. This one it’s popular through landscape photographers, and gives to the photo a colorful look and having a slight over saturation.

Here is the photo, which in my opinion doesn’t put into value the beautiful colors of the Autumn season.

Step 1

After opening the photograph go to Image -> Mode - > Lab color. Lab color is a mode where the photograph it’s separated in two channels: one contains the Luminosity of the photo and the other contains all the colors. This mode allows us to work with either one without fearing that a setting might affect all the channels.

Step 2

Now got to the Layer Palette an then click on the Channels tab. If you can’t find it you can go to Window -> Channels.

Step 3

In the Channels Palette we will see 4 layers named: Lab, Lightness, a, b. The a and b layers controls the colors from the photograph. Now we will select the a layer thing which will automatically hide the rest of the layers and then click on the empty box left of the Lab layer, which will show all the layers. This is useful to see the effect, as it changes.

Step 4

Now that we have the a layer selected, we’ll going to open the the Levels adjustments to increase the contrast. Drag the 2 arrows from extremes beneath the histogram to the center arrows, with the same value. So if we drag the arrow from the left with a value of 45 (from 0 to 45) then the arrow from the right will be dragged until it reaches the value of 210 ( from 255 to 210). You can choose whatever values depending on how powerful the effect you want to be.

Step 5

Now we do the same thing as in Step 4 with the b channel. Again use whatever values you want.

Step 6

Last, we have to go convert it back to RGB by going to Image -> Mode - > RGB. And we have obtained a more colorful photo. If you want to have more control, you can import the unmodified photo as a new layer put beneath the Lab layer, and the we lower down the opacity of the Lab layer to our desire. Here are my before and after images.

It might look a little over saturated, but with a little more tweaking i can easily obtain an even better result.

Have fun and I wait to see your results too.

Tags: Color Management, Editing, Photoshop, Tutorials