The "Cross Processed" look is pretty popular these days - creating an image with unnatural colors and a high contrast look. These effects are easy to accomplish with Photoshop Elements and the Channels & Curves actions available in Handy Actions.

i'mstarting with an image of a pretty girl -

(This image is from Flikr, uploaded by Sol Dust Love, titled "And God Created Women". Many thanks for its use!)

The image is pretty good as it is, but let's add a cross processed look it. This look is popular in ads, in magazine articles and I've also seen it used on in-store display posters.

Luckily, it's very easy to reproduce in both Photoshop and in Elements, especially if you have the Handy Actions pack for Photoshop Elements.

This effect is recreated with Channels - the individual Red, Green and Blue components that make up a typical .jpg image. We'll manipulate each of the three channels of this image with Curves.

Start by choosing the Blue Channel action. Your image will display just the Blue elements, and it will appear to have turned to greyscale (but don't worry - it's just because you're working only with the Blue parts).

With your image in the Blue Channel, run the Curves action, and adjust the line in the dialog to something resembling the image to the right -

To adjust the curve, simply click and drag on the line. In this example, I just dragged the lower left point up a bit and the upper right point down a bit.

Next, do the same thing with the Green Channel.

Run the Green Channel action, followed by the Curves action, and create a curve like the one to the left.

Again, just click and drag right on the line in the dialog to create the curve - you'll be able to see your image adjust in real time as you create the curve.

Finally, run the Red Channel action, followed by Curves, and create a curve like this:

Now run the RGB Channel action to return your image to RGB (normal) editing mode - all three color channels are restored to displaying, and your image will have a different color space look to it.

Create a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer, and increase both sliders slightly. I'm using a setting of +10 to each, but experiment and see what looks good on your image.

To finish, create a Solid Color adjustment layer, and choose a color that goes well with the uintended purpose of this image (an ad, a display, a webpage). Change the blend mode of this layer to Multiply, and adjust its opacity down to 20 ~ 30% or so. Keeping the overall color scheme in mind will help create an image with impact.

Here's the Before and After images - subtle, yet so simple to match any image with an existing color scheme or layout.

You can also adjust on the fly how extreme or subtle you want the effect to be.