How to Create Gritty, Over-Processed and Cool Picture Effects

In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to create gritty, over-processed and cool picture effects that are quite popular nowadays. Creating this effect in Photoshop is really simple and quick. Here’s the effect we’ll be creating:

To create gritty, over-processed and cool picture effects, you’ll need:

• Any recent version of Photoshop

Step 1

As always, we’ll start by opening the image in Photoshop.

Now, we’ll duplicate the background layer by pressing Cmd/Ctrl + J.

Next, go to Filter > Other > High Pass and use the settings shown below.


To boost the image contrast, change the current layer’s blending mode to Hard Light.

Step 2

You can increase the contrast even more by pressing Cmd/Ctrl + J and duplicating Layer 1.

Step 3

If you want to increases the contrast even more, you can duplicate the layer again by pressing Cmd/Ctrl + J.

If you feel the contrast is too intense after duplicating the layer, you can lower the new layer’s opacity as I have done below.

Step 4

We’ll now add some noise, but before that, we need to create a new layer. To do so, Opt/Alt-click on the New Layer icon.

Name the new layer “Noise” and use the settings shown below.

Next, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and use the settings shown below.

Step 5

Finally, we’ll desaturate the colors by adding a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. To do so, click on the New Adjustment Layer option and select Hue/Saturation from the list that appears.

Drag the Saturation slider to the left in order to achieve a washed-out look.

And we’re done! The gritty, over-processed and cool picture effects tutorial is complete!