Coloring/Saturation Trick
Posted to 
icon_tutorial, xposted here blahblahblah.
Okay, this is the first thing I've ever done that's even close to a tutorial of any sort. Yay!
Just a really simple trick to help brighten up dull, faded images. For PSP8, I don't know how well it will translate but it doesn't seem like it should be too hard...
We're going from this:
to this: 
1. Our starting image. No, I don't like J.Lo, her picture just worked really well for this. So sue me.
She's kind of faded and dull, though, which isn't always a bad thing, but bear with me and pretend we want her bright and colorful. Try as I may, I couldn't get the look I wanted by playing around with the saturation, contrast, etc., so that's where this trick comes in.
2. Duplicate the base layer. Your image will look exactly the same. Aren't you proud? Now, apply the Automatic Saturation Enhancement (Adjust>Hue and Saturation>Automatic Saturation Enhancement) on that top layer.
A little better, I suppose, but nowhere near what I was going for. Don't fret, though.
3. Apply a Gaussian Blur to this top layer (Adjust>Blur>Gaussian Blur). Don't get too blurry, I used a radius of 1.00.
This step is just to make the finished image a bit softer and glow-y, you can leave it out if you want.
4. Set the top layer to Overlay. In this case I left it at 100% but you may want or need to bring the opacity down a bit.
And that's about it! Also, if your original image was one that was sorely in need of some sharpening but looked like crap when you sharpened it, try sharpening the base layer. The blurred top layer allows you to sharpen the base layer to the point of looking like crap without the overall image actually looking like crap. Always a plus in my book.
Please let me know what you think, as it is my first time ever posting anything like this. I don't know if maybe this was too simple and wasn't really worth a post, but I thought it was pretty nifty.
icon_tutorial, xposted here blahblahblah.Okay, this is the first thing I've ever done that's even close to a tutorial of any sort. Yay!
Just a really simple trick to help brighten up dull, faded images. For PSP8, I don't know how well it will translate but it doesn't seem like it should be too hard...
We're going from this:
to this: 1. Our starting image. No, I don't like J.Lo, her picture just worked really well for this. So sue me.
She's kind of faded and dull, though, which isn't always a bad thing, but bear with me and pretend we want her bright and colorful. Try as I may, I couldn't get the look I wanted by playing around with the saturation, contrast, etc., so that's where this trick comes in.
2. Duplicate the base layer. Your image will look exactly the same. Aren't you proud? Now, apply the Automatic Saturation Enhancement (Adjust>Hue and Saturation>Automatic Saturation Enhancement) on that top layer.
A little better, I suppose, but nowhere near what I was going for. Don't fret, though.
3. Apply a Gaussian Blur to this top layer (Adjust>Blur>Gaussian Blur). Don't get too blurry, I used a radius of 1.00.
This step is just to make the finished image a bit softer and glow-y, you can leave it out if you want.
4. Set the top layer to Overlay. In this case I left it at 100% but you may want or need to bring the opacity down a bit.
And that's about it! Also, if your original image was one that was sorely in need of some sharpening but looked like crap when you sharpened it, try sharpening the base layer. The blurred top layer allows you to sharpen the base layer to the point of looking like crap without the overall image actually looking like crap. Always a plus in my book.
Please let me know what you think, as it is my first time ever posting anything like this. I don't know if maybe this was too simple and wasn't really worth a post, but I thought it was pretty nifty.