The Matte Effect Photoshop Action – How To Download & Use
Photoshop actions are the best friend of any photo editor. They save time, improve your workflow, and make unique effects with ease. The matte photo effect has always been a popular look among many photographers. With it’s muted tones and soft look it’s an easy way to add a professional look to your images. Luckily the matte effect just got a whole lot easier with the help of this free matte effect Photoshop action.
What’s Included In This Free Matte Effect Photoshop Action?
This action has 6 different matte effects ranging from light to heavy. Depending on how noticeable you want the effect, this photoshop action has you covered.
Although these matte effect actions do all the technical work for you, each is still fully customizable. That way you can easily refine the look to perfectly suit your image.
With one click you can quickly add a beautiful matte look to any image in photoshop!
Click Here To Download This Free Photoshop Action
How Does This Matte Effect Action Work?
After you’ve imported this action, it will show up inside of your Actions Panel. If you do not see your Photoshop actions, go to Window > Actions.
Open the folder called ‘Free Matte Effects’ and select any of the 6 actions.
With one of the actions highlighted, press the ‘play button’ at the bottom of the actions panel.
This will play the selected matte effect Photoshop action and apply a new look to your image.
Once applied, you can further adjust the Curve or layer mask to suit your needs!
How To Further Customize This Photoshop Action To Any Image
The great thing about this Photoshop action is that it sets everything up for you. In some cases, it will create the perfect result for your image in one click.
Other times you may want to consider fine-tuning the action to perfectly suit a specific image. After all, depending on the exposure and color, these matte effect Photoshop actions will affect each image differently.
In these actions, there are two different options to choose from. The first is ‘with contrast’, and the second is ‘flat’.
Both options will create a matte look in your image, but the ‘with contrast’ actions provide further refinements.
After you’ve played one of the matte effect actions labeled ‘with contrast’, you’ll notice the Curve Adjustment has additional anchor points.
These anchor points can be adjusted to further lighten or darken your shadows and mid-tones. The reason it does not affect the highlights is to avoid clipping in your image!
To add a little more life to the matte effect in your image, try to drag down the shadows and up the mid-tones.
The result creates will boost the mid-tones giving a more life-like matte effect. This is the perfect technique to utilize a matte look while still having some contrast.
Boosting the mid-tones can do a lot for portrait photography in particular!
Example Images
Here are a series of photos with matte effects created using this free action:
Download The Matte Effect Photoshop Action For Free
How To Create The Matte Effect In Photoshop Manually
Although this free matte effect Photoshop action saves a ton of time, it’s still useful to understand the process manually.
There is a wide arrange of tools you can use to create a matte look in Photoshop. The best ones are:
- The Curves Adjustment Layer
- The Levels Adjustment Layer
- The Exposure Adjustment Layer
- The Curves Adjustment In Camera Raw
I cover each of these tools in-depth in this post. If you want to learn exactly how this effect is created, this will be a great resource for you!
Conclusion
If you want a simple way to add a gorgeous matte look to your images, this action is the answer. It does all the heavy lifting so you can focus on the next step of your edit. Whether you’re a wedding photographer, casual shooter, or dabble across multiple genres, this free photoshop action will be a valuable tool.
If you know someone who would LOVE to use this free matte effect photoshop action, be sure to SHARE this post with them!
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