Purpose and Technique to Desaturate Fashion Photo

[davidpz888]

Hi all,

Sorry for another topic, but I am wondering if anyone can give some advice or comment on the purpose and some techniques to desaturate fashion photos?

I have heard from a lot of sources it is very common for a fashion photograph to be desaturated in some shape or form in post-production. My question is what is the technical purpose? I know it looks better, but why does it look better? I've noticed by reducing red or yellow, it makes the skin more even... I personally think it looks better but I just cant wrap my head behind the color theory of it.

Secondly, I have heard many different techniques to desaturate a photo. Such as using curves, color balance, hue/sat, and selective color, etc. Are they just different techniques to get to the same result? Or are there a lot of difference?

Some examples from Renat Touichev, a photographer that I admire:
http://www.renat.ca/photos/glamour/f...0/001_7971.jpg
http://www.renat.ca/photos/glamour/0...um/005_026.jpg

The above two looks almost b/w, but they clearly look different. The 2nd almost looks to have a sepia tone...

http://www.renat.ca/photos/glamour/0...ry/00_2141.jpg
http://www.renat.ca/photos/glamour/0...um/001_008.jpg

Two more examples above. Both look desaturated, but different. The 2nd looks warmer... I dont think its just increasing the white balance. But even if it was, I would not want to have to go back to edit the raw file after I've retouched a photo lol

Thanks,
David

[Insensitive.]

In the first photo, i think different elements of the photo are desaturated more/less than others to get that look. The rest look pretty simple. And the desaturation adds drama and emotion. You can take a photo of a sad puppy in color, and that same photo in black and white makes you go awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww somehow adds depth to the photo.

[MaximMorin]

I think their the desaturation thing is more a trend of those time... look for exemple the 80's and 90's, it was the opposite... so i dont think their is a technical matter, exept that most printer give much more best result with desaturated photos then saturated one (they can't print at a certain level of saturation). so i think its more an emotionnal matter

the warmer look of the second one can be had just with some little yellow add in a curves or on the highlight of color balance... but it mostly done during the shoot i thing ;-)

[MaximMorin]

(and sorry for the bad english, i'm a french guy so....)

[apstudios]

I love the examples. Remember, there is always more than one way to skin a cat, though it may look different in the end. I have achieved those results adjusting individual color saturation and luminance in Adobe RAW (HSL/Grayscale tab). Most skin tones are primarily red, orange and yellow. Use a combo of desaturation and increased luminance to get stuff like that first pic (no blonde=desat. yellow, no tan=desat. orange, and balance tone with luminosity). The third pic is just not as intense (possibly overall desaturation w/ increased blue sat and decreased blue luminosity). It is tough to reproduce exact results (esp. if the pictures look different) but most of it is tinkering with the sliders. With the last pic, open a hue/sat layer, find an interesting tone (warm), select the colorize box in the hue/sat window, then adjust the layer opacity to taste. Good luck!

[davidpz888]

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Insensitive: do you have a preferred technique to desaturate selective colors? I am currently experimenting with hue/sat in PS. What I'm doing is selecting colors with the eyedropper, such as on the face/cheek and desaturating those reds and yellows a bit to even out the skin a bit. And I also selectively desaturate strong colors in the background that may be distracting... Not sure if there are better ways... And also I've noticed I cant really change the overall color tone(?) of the image by using that technique.

MaximMorin: no worries, I understood you perfectly. Thanks for bring up the printer issue--I never thought about it. And regarding your mention of photographs a few decades back, I notice that film gave these unique color tones to the overall image (which I like) that I just dont see with digital. I've heard that it is possible to simulate certain film colors by selectivity changing the curves of each color. Do you know what I mean?

apstudios: thanks for the info. I apericate how you explained in detail how to achieve similar effects and how each color affects the photo. This may be a simple question, but when do you decide to change sat as opposed to the luminance? I think luminance is related to brightness(?). So are you increasing the luminance in order to compensate for the decrease in saturation?

[Markzebra]

Its easier to make color harmonize if its desaturated, and there has been a fashion in retouching over the last 3 or 4 years to alter saturation in this way. It all depends on the photographer, some HATE it some love it. The secret is to try and do this in a subtle way and not just to grab the hue/sat slider and whack it down overall.

[apstudios]

I usually start with what annoys me. Often when you desaturate a color (depending on how drastic the change) a perceived tone change can occur, yellow can brighten, orange can darken, but it all depends on the colors in the file (face), how far you push them, how much color depth there is to support the change, etc... that's when brightness/luminance can even out the look.
Also, mimicking a film look in curves is possible, but difficult, time consuming and can provide mixed results (unless you shoot similar scenes and lighting and find a consistent appearance in your files). I would recommend a film simulator (save time figuring it out so you can create more art), you would have the ability to fine tune (and find) the look, and you would get a much wider range of effects. I invested in the Tiffen digital filter program, and my post-production has gone through the roof. It was worth every penny.

[Calbeee]

Hello, I am new to this forum and I am a photographer...
I am also trying to achieve this kind of look too, but is there a way I can find a video clip of doing something similar like this? I cant do this at all by reading all the texts.

Examples showed by davidpz888 are very good which preserve all the skin details and I like em a lot.
http://www.renat.ca/photos/glamour/f...0/001_7971.jpg
http://www.renat.ca/photos/glamour/0...ry/00_2141.jpg


Thanks.

[davidpz888]

Welcome to forum Calbeee! I am also new to this forum.

I have not found any videos, although I do not think it should be too hard to follow by text. The difficulty seems to be finding the "recipes" in this somewhat secretive industry. I recently found an article on photo.net: http://photo.net/learn/digital-photo...n-photography/

It is written by a professional retoucher and he gives a lot of interesting behind the scenes insight on how he works. However he stops short of stating exactly how he achieves his looks. He writes for example:

I’ll share a super secret tip with you on how to create this popular high-end magazine cover color.

Ready?

1. Adjustments—> hue/saturation.
2. Desaturate -100.
3. Change the mode to Overlay.
4. Make another adjustment—> hue/saturation.
5. Desaturate -100.
6. Adjust to taste with the opacity.
7. Add an adjustment color balance.
8. Add some yellow, green, red to get a brownish color.
9. And then, sorry I can’t write the rest, a secret is a secret!

What a tease lol

Anyway, I did find another post on this forum dealing with similar topic: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...n-retouch.html

In this case, a member called jam1212 gave more complete info:

For the "peachy" look, you might try desaturating slightly, then adding a color balance layer. To the shadows, add some blue (somewhere around 10ish) and some cyan (a little less than blue). Leave the mids. For the highlights, add some yellow (again, about 10) and some red (a little less than yellow). This tends to give you that kind of look.

This is the type of info I'm looking for. It doesnt have to be super detailed top secret, but at least somwhat complete and with some relative numerical values for guidance

[Calbeee]

thanks the the tips david... I tried putting a layer and desaturate -100 then overlay adjusting the opacity, but the details seemed to be blown out and lost. How do i recover the lost details??

[singlo]

It makes me laugh when I read photo.net article like this..why bother writes something half-arsed when he states in the beginning that he is going to share a super secret tip and then go on saying secret is a secret. There are many different ways of desaturating the skin and you are better off working out your own way rather than trying to work out his remaining "secretive" incompleted steps. Like any other superficial expert advice, they would tell you in details what are the things least matter and hold out what matter most.

[davidpz888]

Hi Calbeee, I didnt mean to confuse you but as stated in my original post, I did not write that article, I was merely quoting the author. We are in the same boat here since I would like to know, as much as you would, the rest of his "recipe."

And singlo, I completely agree with you. Although I thought it was an interesting article, the author seemed to have boasted a bit too much for my taste. And dont get me wrong, I respect his right of not revealing his "recipe," but the way he said he would reveal his secret and then took the time to list several steps to only stop and almost as if to mock the readers for believing he would actually give away his secret was rather unprofessional in my opinion, especially in an article that is suppose to aid the photography community.

Anyway, some have suggested that the color tones can be obtained naturally from using film. If so, what are some common types of films used in fashion photography that would naturally give those results?

Thanks,
Daivd

[BobZZZ]

This isn't a recipe but if you shoot raw and use Lightroom you can try the HSL panel in develop. If you push all the sliders left you desaturate everything then you can use the spot adjustment tool to drag colour in and out of the picture. Like everything in Lightroom its fairly basic but with 8 channels which you can adjust for saturation luminance and hue it can create this type of effect with the right image.

[davidpz888]

Thanks for the tip BobZZZ! I tend to do the color changes in PS since I prefer to do it after all the other retouches.

[kenwood]

any update on this look? a pro told me that you can do it via high pass filter, but i have not had any success. in fact i wonder if he purposefuly left out some details, because using simple color sat adjustment seem to give better result

[igot2pman]

Run High pass at about 3.5 ish then set the layer to Saturation blending mode. Reduce opacity to bring some color back in.

But in all reality you are better off just creating a 50% grey (OR any grey) layer over your image then setting that to saturation blening mode. Then again reduce the opacity. This works out better as High pass tends to add some color Unless you make your High Pass layer black and white.

If you do a High Pass layer at max, then make black and white, and lastly turn to Saturation blending mode; it will give a hilight reduction/ shadow lifter effect as well as the reduction in saturation. Then again reduce the opacity to taste.

I just ran with what you said, and made some stuff up. So dont think this is what your pro is exactly doing. I learned a lot, thanks for the insperation.

Hope it helps,
-Keven

[Quantum3Studio]

I usually copy a channel (Usually the blue one) and paste it on a new layer that I blend, mostly overlay, multiply color burn and play with the opacity.

[fwolfsteiner]

For the "peachy" look, you might try desaturating slightly, then adding a color balance layer. To the shadows, add some blue (somewhere around 10ish) and some cyan (a little less than blue). Leave the mids. For the highlights, add some yellow (again, about 10) and some red (a little less than yellow). This tends to give you that kind of look.

works fine for me.....

I love this thread! who has more tips?

Here is one of my results, just added an adjustment layer with a little red for the skin....

[Tareq]

In fact i was looking for this kind of retouch, so i tried many ways, but seems all has different look, so maybe my retouch was not good enough or maybe the photos originally was not done properly.

I will keep trying anyway.

[igot2pman]

Not all photos are meant to be desaturated or color changed. Starting off with a great picture is the beginning, followed by GOOD cleaning up. Lastly, take what’s already there and emphasize it with a color shift. Never force a photo to have a color, you have to plan before hand that this picture is going to be sad, happy, angry; then edit the picture to look like it.

Color casts crate moods and if your picture does not match the color mood then it will look off.

My thoughts:
Red: sexy
Blue: sad
pink: love

Below are some links to the meanings of color:
http://www.squidoo.com/colorexpert
http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/symbolism.htm
http://www.sensationalcolor.com/mess...nd-psychology/

Hope it helps,
-Keven

[marcchristopher]

This thread was created more than half a year ago, so I'm not sure, if it makes sense to add my 2 cents now. Anyway, I would like to try to come back to the original question...

As I see it (and I discussed this at length with a design teacher and a drama teacher), reducing the amount of recorded details and information always increases the perceived "level of abstraction". Drawings, e.g., convey a more abstract feeling the less detailed they are. A desaturated or black and white image obviously contains less information than a full color image; the same holds for images with a more "cartoony" look. The missing bits have to be added by our brain. Thus, we perceive the scenery as abstract or unreal.

The important part of this is that abstraction creates distance. Think of the arguments you have with your significant other: When one of you talks in abstract, general terms instead of in terms of "you" and "me", the other one often tends to go crazy: Abstraction feels non-emotional and uninvolved. Even a bit condescending.

So, coming back to retouching: We tend to feel more distant to an abstract scene, as we cannot imaging being a part of this desaturated or black and white world. This feeling of distance, however, is part of our modern times. Some photographers nowadays even cut away the eyes of their models and leave only the body from the chin downwards: We are not interested in the persons behind the faces - what matters is the look. The fashion.

Just my 2 cents. Any thoughts?

[Quantum3Studio]

I use to copy some channel, specially the blue channel and appying a 45% of opacity. For the other hand, doing the same but changing from normal to overlay is another good one.

[RokcetScientist]

Originally Posted by MaximMorin

(and sorry for the bad english, i'm a french guy so....)

No need to apologize, Maxim, as long as your English is waaaay better than most punters' French!