Well the one thing that bugs me most is when the quality of an image is crappy. I think everyone should know this tutorial. I use for images AND sometimes other stuff while I'm playing around with PS.
First, open the picture your going to use. I will be using
THIS picture.
First, open up a document of any size (It could be an avatar, siggy, whatever.) Mine will be the same size of the image (300X224).
Next, right click on the image layer and click on
Duplicate Layer.
Now, you should have two of the same layer.
screenshot
Make sure your on the Duplicated Layer for this step. Go to
Filter>>Noise>>Median and set it between 2 and 5. I chose 3.
screenshot
Set the duplicated Layer's blending options to
Overlay.
screenshot. If you want, you could try different blending options if you don't like the Overlay such as
Soft Light.
Now my picture looks like this:
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3923/eichi1fs.jpg
If you still don't like what it looks like than you can continue on to this or just stop:
go back to the original layer of your image. then go to
Filter>>Blur>>Smart Blur. Play around with the settings. This is what I chose though:
http://img344.imageshack.us/img344/6634/tutscrn50ky.png
Now save your image. This is what mine looks like
with the smart blur:
http://img344.imageshack.us/img344/7986/eichi20kw.jpg
The original was from
Shinta's Imanimetions so it isn't all mine.
Pleast tell me if you liked it or not ^_^ Enjoy.