Fine Art Technique

[rudym]

"Im struggling like a mother to get a technique down.

In the following, Id like to replicate the tones, conversion and obviously the dodging and burning. What do you think has been done in this image. I know it's a long exposure.

It's actually quite a simple picture but it's the technique that brings it alive and Im failing badly there.

Is it Dodging & Burning, Vignetting e.t.c, Curves, Sepia..

http://www.denisolivier.com/p_sets.php?pid=935

Thanks in advance.."

[garibaldi]

am fully aware of the topic. I think I have added plenty of constructuve help on this one, so cut me some slack jack :-)

[rudym]

hahaha had nothing to do with you. just your narrow mind

[rudym]

It will take me 100 years to get to your level. I don't need the distraction. teach me more

[garibaldi]

well first the technique has pretty much been covered in this post in soem way or the other. the second part, that cant relaly be taught, is you just have to feel it. you hav eto see what it is you want it to look like and then use the techniques to get yourself there. Its not all about the technique its the touch, and knowing when to go and when to stop and not overcook it. I hate to sound vague, but its like this, If you and Michael schumaccher were both standing alongside a track and you bath had identical ferraris, he would just be faster, plain and simple, no matter how hard you tried, its just becasue of the feel and experience, thats all. Its not impossible, and not two images are going to be the same

[_ManWithNoName_]

rudym

Cheeers, will take a look, thanks, all the help is great....

[holgaman]

Man,
Here's what I do to get a nice, smooth vignette -
- Select the central portion of the photo with the oval marquee tool and then deselect it
-Add a blank layer above the original and fill with black
-reselect the marquee tool selection
-hold down the alt (option on Mac) and make a layer mask
-for a 12MP image blur the layer mask twice with Gaussian at 250 pixels
-set the blend mode to soft light (or try overlay or hard light for different effect)
-adjust layer opacity to your liking
-from there you can use black or white brushes set to low opacity on the layer mask to reshape your vignette if needed, or bring back lost details

If you use this method on color, sometimes the darkened areas get a bit too saturated. You could then right-click on the layer mask and choose Add Mask to Selection, make a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and pull back the saturation on the darkened areas for a more natural effect.

[Quantum3Studio]

By the way, your edits must be in RAW and 16bpc files in order to get the best smooth tones, such as gradients Remember that monitors, except for those above 3K USD, are not able to show so much smoothness, and much less in gray scaled images. there are a couple of brands such as NEC and other that cannot remember which are exceptionally build to support a bigger color space than the Adobe RGB 1998 and also, to offer 16 bpc quality in the screen, especially for gray scaled images as well.