ABOUT


Hi, so I use this trick all the time in my signatures, and people ask me how I do it, so I decided to create a tutorial for it. Here's what we're going to create:
Spoiler (Click to View)


More Examples: https://imgur.com/a/QzB1v






RESOURCES


The best part about this tutorial is that there are no resources required, except Photoshop, obviously. But other than that, you can create this effect on any image, irrespective of the size or color.




THE TUTORIAL


So let's start the tutorial. First, take any image, for this tutorial, I'll create a new project, with the size of a HF signature and #333333 as the background color. As I mentioned before, that there are no requirements, so you can do this on any image you want.

Spoiler (Click to View)



Second, Press B, or select brush tool with 0% hardness and of any color you want, for this tutorial, I'll pick white color, you can pick any color. But the lighter colors give you better outcome.

With the soft brush, click on top of your image to create highlights, as shown in the GIF below. Make sure that you do it on a new layer.

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I'll set the Opacity to 80%, because I did the white too much. You can do the same if you get it more than you wanted, or you can just delete the layer and re-do it.

Now, select your Rectangular Marquee Tool:

Spoiler (Click to View)
https://i.imgur.com/uXtWP5o.png


After selecting the tool, create a new layer, and select your whole image as shown:

Spoiler (Click to View)

https://i.imgur.com/9C9On7J.png



After selecting the image, go to Select -> Modify -> Border and set it to 2, and hit OK.

Spoiler (Click to View)





Now, pick white color and do Alt + Backspace to fill the selected border. Note: The color should be white in this step, or you won't get the effect.

After this, we are going to repeat the above step. So, create a new layer on top of the old one, select the image with Marquee tool again, but this time, set the border to more than 2, say 5, and hit OK.

Now fill this layer with white too, using Alt + Backspace.

You'll get something like this:

Spoiler (Click to View)



Now, set the mode of both the layers to Overlay.

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You'll get something like this:

Spoiler (Click to View)



Now, take your eraser too, or Press E for the shortcut to get it, and on the top layer, erase where you think it's too much. For example, I erased on the top and bottom, and here's what I got:





Looks nice, right? :)



THAT'S IT!


Hope you guys liked this easy tutorial. It can be used on any image, of any color and looks really sweet. Please do leave a feedback if you learnt something. Hope this helps. 👍