Help with edit – lighting and color enhancement

V
Posted By
V
Feb 10, 2009
Views
634
Replies
9
Status
Closed
Hi all,

Please find 2 links below of containing the same image, one "before" edit and one "after." I don’t know how the artist was able to get this amazing effect with photoshop.

In words, she was ale to get a silvery metallic look to the dress, making it brighter at the same time but without loosing the details (would happen if increase contrast too much). I also see a slight color enhancement…but tried many times without luck. If you have any idea how this was done, Please help me out. I’m desperate for a similar effect. If you can, please be specific too, for I’m not a pro…like many of you.

Before:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95421223@N00/3268970228/

After:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95421223@N00/3268970282/

Thanks,

V

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

R
ronviers
Feb 10, 2009
Only had that tiny image to work with but:

Duplicate background twice
Threshold layer with a level of around 200
Merge down
Gaussian blur that layer with radius around 2
Apply that layer to the other duplicated layer as a mask Blend the layer to the background – linear burn looks pretty close

You can get much closer with a little playing around.
V
V
Feb 11, 2009
I’m so sorry about the small size images….But thank you so much for your help, I’ll try your suggestions as soon as I can today.

Again, Thanks!,

V

On Feb 10, 2:59 pm, "" wrote:
Only had that tiny image to work with but:

Duplicate background twice
Threshold layer with a level of around 200
Merge down
Gaussian blur that layer with radius around 2
Apply that layer to the other duplicated layer as a mask Blend the layer to the background – linear burn looks pretty close
You can get much closer with a little playing around.
R
ronviers
Feb 11, 2009
On Feb 10, 7:25 pm, V wrote:
I’m so sorry about the small size images….But thank you so much for your help, I’ll try your suggestions as soon as I can today.
Again, Thanks!,

V

You’re welcome. Let me know if you need any help getting the look you are after.
V
V
Feb 11, 2009
Hey,

I tried your suggestions and was able to get the metallic effect just fine, thank you very much with that. I followed your comment but skipped the part where you apply one layer as a mask over the other, I wasn’t quite sure how to do that…But it turns out great nevertheless.

With this trick, however, I still a little off from where I want to go. I created 2 links for 2 entirely different images below, I think these point more directly at the effect I want.

You will see that the After is visibly sharper (but sharpen is simple not enough), the faces seem much brighter or whiter, there is a warm photo filter on (I believe), and the dress does slightly has the kind of metallic still (per my previous question). I know that this is a work of a master and takes a lot of skill to achieve, but all I really want to know is how to get the faces whiter and the image sharper like that.

Before:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95421223@N00/3270695151/

After:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95421223@N00/3271515310/

THANKS!

V

About the photos: These are my personal photo, and as such I do have all permissions to use and publish them.

On Feb 10, 5:42 pm, "" wrote:
On Feb 10, 7:25 pm, V wrote:

I’m so sorry about the small size images….But thank you so much for your help, I’ll try your suggestions as soon as I can today.

Again, Thanks!,

V

You’re welcome. Let me know if you need any help getting the look you are after.
R
ronviers
Feb 11, 2009
Hmmm. It looks like they used a curves adjustment layer to bring down the blues but I am not really a photo retouching person – I’m better at effects. This is getting into one of those areas where I start offending people. Hopefully one of the retouch experts will weigh in. If not, you can post this question at http://curvemeister.com/ and get the opinions of real experts.

Good luck,
Ron
R
ronviers
Feb 11, 2009
I forgot to mention how to add a layer as a mask. This is probably not a very good way but it works. Maybe someone will suggest an easier way.

Control+click then control+c on the icon of the layer to use as a mask. Select the layer that to be masked, then click the mask button at the bottom of the layers palette. Then alt+click on the new mask then control+v.
V
V
Feb 11, 2009
Thank you very much for all your Help! I really appreciated it.

V

On Feb 11, 5:38 am, "" wrote:
I forgot to mention how to add a layer as a mask. This is probably not a very good way but it works. Maybe someone will suggest an easier way.

Control+click then control+c on the icon of the layer to use as a mask. Select the layer that to be masked, then click the mask button at the bottom of the layers palette. Then alt+click on the new mask then control+v.
J
johnnyblain
Feb 13, 2009
I can see how you would go with the threshold method alright… here’s another to try

1. select the dress – depends on how you want to go about it, calculations is usually the best but most difficult to work out, and will give a less "photoshopped" effect, otherwise magnetc lasso it, magic wand it whatever you like
2. with this selection active make a new levels adjustment layer – to get to his level I’d leave black at 0 mid’s at .5 whites at 235
3. put an unsharp mask layer on it on it (I’d mask this myself but he
hasn’t)
4. add a curves layer and put an "s" shaped curve on — in the curves dialog click on the quarter points ( the are four on the line going from the bottom left up to the top right, so go one "square" up the line and click here this will give you an anchor point, with your down arrow bring this down just a little, now click on the line where it intersects with the third line (going from left to right) (it will no longer be on the intersection but a little below it), with your up arrow bring this back to the intersection, and then just a little above it.. this is an okay (but better that brightness/contrast tool) for adding contrast, there are much more elegant solutions that produce no color shift at all and masses of contrast but they are very complex to describe (easy to do just complex to describe)

The color shift IMHO is an unintentional artifact of whatever method he used to add contrast–not ideal

These steps certainly got me fairly close to his final image at a quick stab in the dark

Always always always (i could go on) use adjustment layers esp. when working with jpegs as this allows you to undo your work without losing any image quality in the process, all of the steps(excepting the unsharp mask) described above are compressive and therefore "lossy" I hate that!

J
J
johnnyblain
Feb 13, 2009
The second one looks like he just used adjustment layer-photo filter- warming

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