D&B Actual techniques which professional uses.

[cricket1961]

Hubba and Wierd

I have actually had to give my softlight layer as a print to photographers who had seen it
and thought it was a piece of art. Especially models faces.
I agree it looks cool and very much like a pencil sketch.

Chris

[Markzebra]

Why don't you post one of the older ones Chris? In this way hopefully it will at least frighten off the "cant be bothered" crowd

[cricket1961]

Couldn't find an older more intricate one. But this is about halfway there on a image.
Compression takes sits toll on the detail.

Chris

[vapour]

Thats insane, was all that done by hand or was any of it done with selections via luminosity?

[HuBBa]

hahaha Chris.. you need models with better skin dude (or not, as the time you get to spend on that is hopefully billable

Nice example though Chris. And shows quite well how much detail you will go into with D/B techniques.

And my bet is 100% wacom

[cricket1961]

Vapour

Its all by hand. Some of the large ares(not large strokes) are done with a curve move via normal. No luminosity, I'm not a big fan of luminosity until it gets fixed.

Hubba
I wouldn't mind a model with much cleaner skin. But you would be surprised at how clean the skin of this one actually was.

And yes 100% Wacom. I don't even have a mouse connected to the computer. Not for a least 7 years.

Chris

[HuBBa]

Yeah its the drawback of high quality lenses, medium format/full format cameras and maybe harsh contrasting lighting.

And speaking of that, i was curious, how often is high detail D&B techniques used on low-grade sourcematerial such as from 10MP images (40D, D80 etc). I shoot with both digital backs and with DSLRS and i am having a hard time seeing that the resolution at those level will actually benefit from a pixel by pixel retouching. I use it ofcourse for larger visible pores and luminance shifts, but the ammount of detail shown on your layer and others that ive seen do look like its a higher quality original aswell.

Reason im asking is that i suspect a lot of people are trying to do a miracle d&B cure to source material that really wont benefit much from that approach (apart from being extremely slow , and in the end it might even make it look blurred and with less texture than originally.

[vapour]

Originally Posted by cricket1961

Vapour
No luminosity, I'm not a big fan of luminosity until it gets fixed.

How is it broken?

[HuBBa]

i think it may be this: http://www.alternativephotoshop.com/....php?f=14&t=12 he is refering to.

[cricket1961]

Hubba

Nice link. I had not seen it before and it certainly explains it way better than I could technically. The bottom portion, with the grey and blue, is more my speed, but it illustrates perfectly what has been accepted(and for the most part ignored) for years.
It has bugged me since 1997 or so. It kind of frightens me to at times see people wielding it like a hammer on some images without checking end points etc.

I fully expect that if I am going to do a move utilizing a luminosity setting that I should not be seeing any shift in hue or otherwise, no matter how small or easily worked around. There are high hope for a true curve fix in the future though! : )

Vapour, I hope Hubba's link helped. It was much more eloquent about the issue than I could have been.

Hubba,

I do a lot of d&b on 5d images. The majority are Canon DS MrkII. But I had a client years ago, Melvin Sokolsky who used a 6 megapixel camera only.
It can be done to lower res images (camera res, not ppi) if done with the correct brushes etc. And yes it does go faster on those files.

Chris

[HuBBa]

Heh well considering the new 5D mk2 will hit the market with same res as the 1DS Mk3 (21 MP) i suspect we'll be seeing a lot more need for proper (as going in and fixing every pore) D&B.

Oh and my first camera was a EOS D60 actually, 6MP and boy i loved that one. Actually took this with that camera and it's been blown up to A2 size. Food for thought when everyone is hunting the megapixels

(Oh and go easy on the retouch on that, it was done before i had learned anything

[Markzebra]

Yes whether its necessary or not do proper dodge and burn, or whether you can get away with shortcuts (by this I don't generally mean filtering obviously) is really dependent on image quality. Somehow though, taking the time to manually work an image whether on the surface it looks like it needs it or not, can add to its "value" - the ones you work harder on can reflect that work in some way, even though this is not logical, my experience is beginning to suggest that.

As for Luminosity, sometimes it works - it does take each RGB channel and applies the same values off or on all 3 channels - so on things things heavily red and yellow it generally causes hue shift, but once in a while its a shortcut that comes in handy and its important to know its there. In CMYK, back in the days when I was having to work in CMYK all the time, luminosity worked wonders. Somehow the unequal spread of Cyan is less harmful - for density changes in CMYK its an incredible and quick tool tool

[vapour]

Chris would you be able to respond to that article for dummies? Its a little technical for me.

[skydog]

I came across this tonight...basic iintro for those who are new to D&B

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/dnb.htm

[Scottydotty]

Hi Chris, Thanks for posting your 50% gray layer. It just shows you how time consuming dodge and burn is. I'm just wondering do you know any resources where I could obtain a hi end close up portrait of female models for practicing D & B? ( similar quality of which is on your website ) This would be for personal use at home only. Thanks

[Gleit]

concerning skin, one way to do db is to make an empty layer...put in soft light...paint with small brush opacity 6 % white on dark parts and black on white...this creates the absolute most high end skin result...however very time consuming and takes some practice to learn...when I do beauty I do this in 300 % on a 30 megapixel pic so you can fix every detail....by the way, i am a pro fashion photographer and this is my first post in here :-) www.martingleit.dk

[vapour]

Originally Posted by Gleit

concerning skin, one way to do db is to make an empty layer...put in soft light...paint with small brush opacity 6 % white on dark parts and black on white...this creates the absolute most high end skin result...however very time consuming and takes some practice to learn...when I do beauty I do this in 300 % on a 30 megapixel pic so you can fix every detail....by the way, i am a pro fashion photographer and this is my first post in here :-) www.martingleit.dk

very nice work

[maxrichardson]

Clone stamppin' then dodge and burnin'!

[jimlafferty]

How does one extract curves/luminosity info for use elsewhere, as Chris has on his d/b layer or as is suggested in the linked-to "Problems with curves?" post?

Some of the large ares (not large strokes) are done with a curve move via normal

I then extracted the luminosity component of the original as a layer in its own right

- jim

[P_fuzz]

I think he is either reproducing the original light with a DB layer (painting it all) or maybe using levels and color range tool to select just the highlights and make a new mask!

I am guessing here!!!

do you have link for these post you mentioned?

[jimlafferty]

The first is quoted from Chris in this thread -- see here.

The second is from this article, linked to in this post.

[William Wilson]

Originally Posted by ashkumar

Thanks you all guys,

I've found a very good videio tutorial and that is exactly what I want. I learned this technique very well.

Thanks you so much all. Now I want to turn myself to use brushes. do you knows how to use brushes for eyebrow, lips, eyelashes. I'm going to create an seperate thread for it.

Ashkumar

Do you have a link to the thread you were going to start?

[Moejoe]

Hi, I am a newbie and in noway a pro. But first, I think a pro will ever dismiss any tool or technique out of hand. The techniques used will depend on the results being sought. Usually i find that on a high res image you will use different dnb techniques for different parts of the the image. I usually DnB with dual curves and the soft light technique, but also clone stamp and healing brush set to lighten/darken mode and at low opacity—as with most things in PS— can also be effective in removing blemishes/evening out tones without leaving the normal telltale signs of healing and cloning.

For retouches such glamour etc blurs—at low opacity— can be used, along with DnB, to save time but also to give a look that DnB alone can not, or would take to long to, get.

Just my thoughts, but remember as-long as the end image looks how u or the client wants, no one will care, or even see— how u did it.