Tip no.1: "The Man Ray effect". 1. Choose a portrait pic that has good midtones without too much contrast. Here's my example. It's quite good to start with a B&W image, so desaturate if your'e using a colour shot. In the top menu bar that's image > adjustments > desaturate . 2. Duplicate the layer, and highlight this new layer in the layers pallette and in the menu bar go to image > adjustments > invert. This will turn your pic into a negative like this: 3. Still on the same layer scroll down from 'normal' in the blending mode menu ( top left of the layers pallette) and hit 'difference'. You should now end up with this: 4. And bingo! Flatten the image and here's your finished homage to Man Ray, one of the greatest photographic artists ever! Works really well with colour too, for that '60s Hippie look.

Tip no.2: "The Art Look" 1. We know about the 'artistic' filters in PS, but here's a little variation I discovered. Open up a pic in colour of some nice outdoors scene. This is my example: 2. Looks nice, but maybe you want something a little more 'arty'? Ok, duplicate the layer, highlight it in the layers pallette and go to filters in the top menu bar. Scroll down and find stylize > find edges.Click that. This is what you'll have: 3. Interesting but maybe not very subtle? Now go to edit in the top menu bar and scroll to 'fade find edges', click that and up comes a window named Fade, with an opacity bar and below that a 'Mode' tab. Scroll down that and hit 'Multiply' and then click 'OK'. Now you'll have this: 4. Looks a little dark and not quite colourful enough? I'd suggest tweaking the 'Hue/Saturation' and then the 'Brightness/Contrast' until you end up with something like this: 5. Et voila - Something just a little bit unusual!

More tips coming soon. Stay tuned!