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Cool Picture Effects

Medha Godbole
Do you want to give cool picture effects to your photographs and make them look totally surreal? Here are some ideas to help you regarding the same.
Cameras with rolls and elaborate and expansive lenses and whole paraphernalia is a passe now. With the advent of digital cameras and digital photography, the affair of clicking photographs has become very easy.
From seeing the photograph immediately after it is clicked, to altering it using various picture effects using photograph or picture editors, there is absolutely no limit as to what all can you do with a photograph on a picture editor. The next paragraphs will outline some cool picture effects, which you can apply on your pictures.

Making Brilliant Picture Effects

Render

The most common software you have for editing a photograph is the Adobe Photoshop. There are quite a few other such software, which are much more advanced and jazzy.
Nevertheless, pick any image you want to edit or rather give an effect to. It could be a portrait or a landscape or anything. If you cannot think of any, select any of your photographs.
After selecting, choose the 'Filter' menu, and select the option named as 'Render'. Follow that by clicking on 'Lighting effects'. You can play with this by changing the default to light, omni, or the available options. Once you are satisfied with the effect, just save the modified image.

Distort

It is a better effect you can give to your photograph. As earlier mentioned, import the image on Photoshop. Once you are done with that, click on the 'Filter' menu, and you would see an option named 'Distort'.
Choose the option 'Zigzag' in it. The settings can be anywhere between 5 to 8 ripples for the option amount and 12 to 15 for ridges. Choose the style as 'Pond ripples', and click on OK.

Texture

If there is a portrait, one of the effects on Photoshop is the glassy or the stained glass look. Considering that you have imported the picture on Photoshop project, we will move on to the next step. Check out the 'Texture' command on the drop down menu of 'Filter', and select the texture named as 'Stained glass' as a sub command.
In there, you would have options for enhancing or reducing the intensity of light, cell size, border thickness, and so on. This way you can also try creating backgrounds in Photoshop.

3D

Create great 3D effects by morphing plain text into words, and letter popping from page by creating original vector art in a drawing program, like Adobe illustrator. You can then take it on your picture editing software for applying the effects.
To do this, choose a font in adobe illustrator and type a word, name, or a sentence, and let the size be 400 points. The horizontal and vertical scale have to be at 150%. Now, select the text, and apply the 'Extrude' and 'Bevel' filters. Save it and open it, or import it in Photoshop. You are done!

Cool Online Effects
If you do not have any image editing software, you have the option of online effects. There are a number of sites - Aviary, Dumpr, Befunky, Blibs, Face in hole, etc. These sites have everything from a simple editing to advanced effects to a picture.
Thus, you can give as many effects to the picture you want on the Internet. Along with these, there are a few sites where you just have to browse and give in the photograph, and select a desired effect. You can also get websites where you get some amazing picture effects free. You would have to search a bit for the best free photo editing software.
Eventually, the more you use Photoshop and other image managing software, the better you would be at it. You would be able to create amazing photo effects. You just need to keep it at it! All the best!