any help would be greatly appreciated....ive been raking my brains to get this exact look on some photos ive got.

i love the duotone plus soft focus look this achieves

an suggestions please

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/paulie_walnuts/misc/wedding115.jpg

dann... Welcome to RetouchPRO

The soft focus might have been done in the camera. Duotoning is a built in function of Photoshop. You didn't say what software you are using.

thanks for the reply swampy.

im using photoshop cs2 and am fairly proficent at it....ive used duotone and other sepia techniques but cant get it near enought o my liking...i was hoping someone may point me in another direction,

the softness is not in camera as the exif shows the camera settings used and they indicate a high sharpness.

thanks for the reply :)

To my eye the softness just looks like no sharpening was applied in post-processing the image. Even the sharpest digital capture will be a tich soft compared with a conventional photo taken with comparable settings.

As far as the duotone is concerned, I've been happiest with the technique described here (http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=8).

to be honest...teh effect is simple duotone...nothing more...why analyze something that's not there! duotone and some weak softness....



G

the softness is not in camera as the exif shows the camera settings used and they indicate a high sharpness.


What part of the exif data are you using to find the sharpness of the image?

File: - O:\TEMP\wedding115.jpg

Make - NIKON CORPORATION
Model - NIKON D200
Orientation - Top left
XResolution - 300.00
YResolution - 300.00
ResolutionUnit - Inch
Software - Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows
DateTime - 2006:08:04 08:32:10
WhitePoint - 0.31
PrimaryChromaticities - 0.64
YCbCrCoefficients - 0.30
YCbCrPositioning - Co-Sited
ExifOffset - 364
ExposureTime - 1/60 seconds
FNumber - 4.00
ExposureProgram - Normal program
ISOSpeedRatings - 100
ExifVersion - 0221
DateTimeOriginal - 2006:07:28 19:57:59
DateTimeDigitized - 2006:07:28 19:57:59
ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr
CompressedBitsPerPixel - 4 (bits/pixel)
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
MaxApertureValue - F 2.83
MeteringMode - Spot
LightSource - Auto
Flash - Strobe return light detected
FocalLength - 55.00 mm
UserComment -
SubsecTime - 2
SubsecTimeOriginal - 2
SubsecTimeDigitized - 2
FlashPixVersion - 0100
ColorSpace - Uncalibrated (-1)
ExifImageWidth - 3872
ExifImageHeight - 2592
InteroperabilityOffset - 1008
SensingMethod - One-chip color area sensor
FileSource - Other
SceneType - Other
CustomRendered - Normal process
ExposureMode - Auto
White Balance - Manual
DigitalZoomRatio - 1 x
FocalLengthIn35mmFilm - 82 mm
SceneCaptureType - Standard
GainControl - None
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Hard
SubjectDistanceRange - Unknown

GPS information: -
GPSVersionID - 2.2.0.0

Thumbnail: -
Compression - 6 (JPG)
XResolution - 72
YResolution - 72
ResolutionUnit - Inch
JpegIFOffset - 1154
JpegIFByteCount - 5480

I use irfanview as my default image viewer on windows - open the image and hit the 'E' key for exif data in that.

hows about duplicating backround and bluring that layer and applying it as soft light and then adding an adjustement hue/saturation layer and putting colourize on?

Videosean

None of that guarantees that the image will be sharp. If the camera is not focused correctly or moved during the exposure ( or other things ) the image may well be fuzzy while the data indicates all that you have listed.

The data indicates what the camera has done to the image, the camera will not correct for a gross error in sharpness.