Falling Leaves Free Photoshop Tutorial for Photographers


Happy season of falling leaves !

 In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to create beautiful, warm autumn effect, using color & light overlays and leaf overlays. I'm going to use Free Color & Light overlays ( link at the bottom of this post) and leaf overlays from our Falling Leaves Overlays pack.

There are no expensive PS Actions involved here and there are no complicated ways to achieve this look. I would say this is a basic knowledge of Photoshop and ability of working with the layers.
This tutorial has been created with Adobe PS CC but you can use any software supporting layers, PSE, PS CS+ and many other.

Let's get started with before and after picture.


Our before picture is a little bit flat, the colors are dull and since the Fall is all about warm tones and falling leaves, we are going to give it more of these.


This is how our picture looks like with the leaf overlay. There is no magic here, I just simply applied  leaf overlay over the picture layer. This overlay, like all our leaves overlays, is created with the real leaves so you will get very realistic look.

You can check our Falling leaves Complete guide here.

So after leaves, we need more colors for sure. I'm going to use both warm light and color overlay here.


So once again I applied first Color Overlay than Tonal light overlay over the leaf overlay.
This is my settings of these two new layers  ( Color Overlay Mode: Soft Light, Fill 78% + Autumn Tonal Light Overlay Mode: Screen, Opacity 83%).
I applied also layer mask to each of these layers and I masked off with the black soft brush (opacity 50%) area over little girl. I just don't like too much color cast on the face mostly.

If you more into soft delicate look you can finish at this point, merge the layers and continue with your finishing touches (resize for the web, sharpen details or reduce noise.)

I like more glow and contrast.


My last two Adjustment Layers : Levels ( midtone input 0.79 and ) + Brightness/Contrast with the Contrast 16.

Here is my final picture. Hope you will find this tutorial useful.


Thank you and don't forget to pin this tutorial for later and share it with your friends.

Autumn Light & Color overlays here.
Falling Leaves Overlays 

more Free PS Tutorials here