How to Customize the Effect of a Matte Photoshop Action

I am a big fan of the matte look in creative editing, but I sometimes feel like the effect is a little too heavy on the subject, making them appear darker or, in some cases, out of focus. In this tutorial, I will show you how to work with matte actions to achieve the overall effect, while keeping your subject crisp and clean.

WHAT IS MATTE?

A matte Photoshop action mimics the effect of a photograph printed on matte paper. Matte paper is completely flat, and does not have any sort of sheen to it, which creates a very distinctive look, particularly in the blacks/shadows of the print. This look is achieved in Photoshop by flattening out the blacks in an image through Curves and Levels adjustments. This can done with either color or black and white images.

Now, let's say you apply an action, and you love the overall look, but you want to reduce the matte effect on your subject because you feel as though the matte effect makes them less bright and crisp. Here's how...

COLOR MATTE ACTIONS

For this image, I am going to apply the Rich Matte action from the Luxe Newborn Workflow Collection.  Be sure to also check out our Velvet Matte Collection for a wide variety of beautiful Matte Actions.

Once you have run a matte action, open up the individual layers to decipher which layer (or layers) is creating the matte effect. You can do this by clicking the small arrow in the Layers panel beside the action folder/name.

In the case of Pretty Actions, the matte layers are always clearly labeled, so I have clicked on the Rich Matte layer that is visible underneath the main Rich Matte group:

As you will above, I have reduced the opacity of this layer to 33%, which is a way to globally reduce the matte effect in the entire image, but let's get even more fine-tuned by using the layer mask and a brush to reduce the effect only on the subject.

First, click on the layer mask icon for Rich Matte, which is the white rectangle pictured below. This will allow you to non-destructively edit the file, which means that if you make a mistake, you can easily undo the changes you make without having to start over. For more on layer masks, click here.

The matte effect looks particularly beautiful on black and white images, but you still may find that you want to tone it down just a bit.

Here is an example using the Matte Film action. After playing the action and opening the individual layers, I have selected the Matte layer mask:

I used the same technique as before, a black brush with a soft edge applied to the Matte layer mask at a low opacity to reduce the matte effect. As you can see below, the result is subtle - it's just enough to make the subject a bit more clear, while retaining the matte look throughout the image:

Do you have any questions about the techniques we have discussed here? We love hearing from you! Please visit us in our private Pretty Photoshop Actions  Facebook group and at the Pretty Forum!

Also, be sure to check out all the other great Pretty Actions Photoshop Action Collections and Overlay Collections.