How to achieve this color toon?

[Habeeb]

Hi every body,

this is my first question in this very helpful forum which i am spending a lot of time to learn from your valuable posts .


Anybody can help my how to achieve color toon similar to the toon in the below gallery.

Here

Thanks,

[secretagents]

Desaturate a bit in RGB mode and then increase the contrast just a little bit on the L channel in Lab mode.

[Habeeb]

Thanks dear Secretagent,

i have tried your short method, i like it.

but still i havent reach the same toon.

thanks a lot.

[secretagents]

No problems.

Frankly I did not expect you'd get exactly the same look but just gave what I thought to be the quickest aproximation of that kind of stuff.

You could use levels or curves on the Lab L channel instead of contrast for example of course.

Or perhaps trying to do it all in CMYK would be another way. You'd desaturate, which would affect only the CMY channels, and then you could play with the luminosity of the K channel with any of the above mentioned tools. This would yeld a different result than the above but still in the same vein.

You can also copy channels into each other, for example you could paste a Lab L channel into the CMYK K channel and fade to taste or vice versa.

Not to speak about copying the Lab L channel or the CMYK K channel and pasting it as a new layer in multiply mode at a certain opacity and so on...

Or any mixture of thereof and more you can do with the gradient map or the channel mixer in grayscale mode applied in luminosity mode at a certain opacity for example.

Have fun,

Cheers

[Tareq]

Always when i see some nice effect or color tone online then i wish to see the original, almost good shots originally to start with can help a lot to have many or different results, if your shots are different than those shots originally then it is difficult to achieve same color tones for both [i said difficult not impossible].

In fact i am working hard now to achieve those kind of desaturated color tones or mono/cold look, maybe i didn't get something perfect, but i've got many results that are good as well.

[Habeeb]

Secretagents, Thanks a lot you've open to me a venue leads to wide area of the retouching information’s.

I will try it again and again
Many thanks for the useful time you spent in this page.



Dear Tariq,

I totally agree with you , a good retouching needs a powerful row material / photo.

We wish to see your result , I’m sure it will add a lot.

Thanks,

[DJSoulglo]

Isn't it just a slight desat, and then messing with the neutral in selective color and then adding a vignette?

[Habeeb]

Thanks dear DJSoulglo for your shortcut

can you try to apply your method in the attached image.


thanaks,

every body are welcomed to enhance the attached picture in order to meet our target.

[Flashtones]

I'm really reluctant to post this because your original is so different from your target, I'm really not sure what you're hoping for.

I wont mention the steps I took because, A) it's probably not the look you're after and, B) it's probably not the most efficient route. But just ask if you'd like to know.

[Habeeb]

Thanks Dear Flashtones,

I like your retouching it similar to what i have got little bit.


let ‘s see if someone of our friends can achieve different look.


many thanks,

[chillin]

I don't think Photoshop can replace good photography.

[0lBaldy]

Tis funny you agree that you need to start with a good similar photo... then present us with an outdoor shot with heavy shadows to compare with an indoor studio shot with proper lighting... The lady is in a black dress and the majority of the background/surroundings are dark.. your image .. the boys are in bright clothes and the background is very bright and far from dark... the atmospheres are totally different.. but I gave it a shot anyway...

I used Hue/Saturation on the red
replaced background so it would be similar
lightened the boys face using the history tool set @ screen then healed

This was quick and dirty on this small sample .. working on the larger original should produce much better results

Practice Cubed!

[secretagents]

Duplicate layer -> Desaturate -> Set Blend Mode to Overlay at 75% opacity -> Duplicate this second layer -> Add HSL adjustment layer (Saturation -30) and you'll get what I posted.

[secretagents]

I've pushed it a little further actually. On the previous image I added vignetting with the free plugin Vignette Corrector and then used the Apply Image command (Red Channel in Overlay mode 100%) subsequently faded at ~30%. Any good?

[secretagents]

Cool little trick I have just sussed out:

Channels palette -> Ctrl Click in the RGB slot -> Invert Selection -> Cut -> Duplicate layer -> Set to Screen mode -> Duplicate new layer.

[holgaman]

Habeeb,
To get the color tones in the gallery you posted, here is a quick method I've used -
-Make a hue/sauration adjustment layer and change the blend mode to color
-click in the box next to colorize, near the bottom
-set the hue slider to 30 and leave the others alone
-lower opacity on the adjustment layer to taste. I've set it to 40% on the photo of the kids. This can usually give you the kind of skin tones I think you're looking for, but make sure you start with neutral color balance in the camera. The photographer in the gallery you first listed was careful to choose a setting with muted colors, that also helps to get the affect achieved there.

[Habeeb]

Originally Posted by chillin

I don't think Photoshop can replace good photography.

thanks chillin we are reaching the same level of agreement.

nice retouching.

Originally Posted by 0lBaldy

Tis funny you agree that you need to start with a good similar photo... then present us with an outdoor shot with heavy shadows to compare with an indoor studio shot with proper lighting... The lady is in a black dress and the majority of the background/surroundings are dark.. your image .. the boys are in bright clothes and the background is very bright and far from dark... the atmospheres are totally different.. but I gave it a shot anyway...

I used Hue/Saturation on the red
replaced background so it would be similar
lightened the boys face using the history tool set @ screen then healed

This was quick and dirty on this small sample .. working on the larger original should produce much better results

Practice Cubed!

Very valuable contribution, my intention was on the color toon only un-respectively of the other conditions.

very good result

[Habeeb]

Dear secretagents,

i tried your easy way, i acheve almost the same very nice try.

only the second method that i didnt get it.


happy of your contribution,

[Habeeb]

Originally Posted by holgaman

Habeeb,
To get the color tones in the gallery you posted, here is a quick method I've used -
-Make a hue/sauration adjustment layer and change the blend mode to color
-click in the box next to colorize, near the bottom
-set the hue slider to 30 and leave the others alone
-lower opacity on the adjustment layer to taste. I've set it to 40% on the photo of the kids. This can usually give you the kind of skin tones I think you're looking for, but make sure you start with neutral color balance in the camera. The photographer in the gallery you first listed was careful to choose a setting with muted colors, that also helps to get the affect achieved there.

nice post holgaman, i tried it ... easy and usefull , i like the result .

many thanks,

[holgaman]

You're welcome. The method I suggested also works nice on a scene with a blue sky to get that muted, gray-blue look.

It's always interesting to see all the different solutions to one problem, there's approaches I would have never thought of. Have fun!

[secretagents]

Originally Posted by Habeeb

Dear secretagents,

i tried your easy way, i acheve almost the same very nice try.

only the second method that i didnt get it.

happy of your contribution,

Forget about the second method with cutting the channels selection, I can't reproduce it myself despite it is exactly what I did. There must be a factor at play that eludes me there but I'll found out someday.

Glad you like the other method and my contribution in general, thanks

[secretagents]

Hehe, I just found out that the selection made by ctrl clicking in the channels palette is affected by the active paint colors.

With neutral grey as foreground and black as background I obtain the same results again.

I still have to fully understand how this works though.

[Habeeb]

secretagents/holgaman,

I appreciate your valuable input.

Many thanks,