Darkening Image Technique

[derienzo777]

Huge fan of this site. If this has been solved before, please just direct me to the correct thread. I have searched before and not found it.

I'm a big amy dresser fan. Am interested in how to get her darkening techniques. For example, attached are a before and after image from her portfolio.

I have lots of experience in skin smoothing and other retouching, but am not familiar with the correct ways to achieve this style. Any help is much appreciated.

I'm already familiar with her techniques to even skin color, curves for overall color adjustment, and her highlighting. However, not sure what it takes to really dramatize and darken the entire image.

Thanks!
Ben

[Yoolan]

Hey folks,
i gave her a try.

it was really hard to achieve that look...

but with selective color, color balance, curves and the channels it works.
at first i cleaned the skin and added details from blue channel back. then i adjusted color.
I darkened the image with curves and a mask(bluemask with gaussian blur).
and so one. hard to describe.

[philbach]

Well this photo isn't nearly as polished as the one you posted but it sort of approaches what your looking for.

I stacked up a series of adjustment layers. The first is a curves layer to darken the the darker parts of the image and increase the contrast. The second was a Hue saturation layer to desaturate and slightly tint the subject. The third was a color balance layer to approach the tone of the image and finally a surface blur layer with a mask to smooth out her face.

Perhaps the blurring should have been first and there are many other ways to approach this look in photoshop.

[derienzo777]

some good ideas...yoolan, real nice.

i'm having a hard time getting it down. if anyone has some more detailed thoughts on the actually darkening portion...i'd be interested in that. the skin cleaning and highlighting i understand.

b

[philbach]

Well I took the original and applied curves to approach the luminosity of the end product.

I used the sampler tools on the background and her left shoulder area. Here's a screen dump of the luminosity correction

[nudii]

this is wat i got =]

[derienzo777]

well...still trying... anyone give some feedback? i know i'm not there yet...what am i missing?

thanks!

[Syd]

Well I think you have the color and the darkness of the image right but your skin has too much contrast in it. If you compare it to Amy's, hers has a lot more midtones to it. Yours has mainly shadows and highlights. I am having the same problem with the image. It could, in part, be due to the small size of the image that we have to work from. I used Phil's (thanks Phil) settings for the curve adjustment layer which got me into the ball park and then I tweaked it with a levels adjustment layer to bring down the highlights somewhat and I even ended up using a brightness/contrast adjustment layer. Finally I added a diffuse glow from The Light's Right Studio. But I am not happy with it. I would love to hear what other people have to say.