How to achieve these tones/colours?

[ryans.daughter]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post, although I have been lurking around for a while now soaking up all the information I can find in this fantastic forum!

Forgive me if this has already been covered -I have spent some time searching through past threads trying to see what I can find, to no avail yet.

I absolutely adore the film-like treatment of colour in these images:

http://d30opm7hsgivgh.cloudfront.net...jG3FXt8U_c.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_u6A0cK_W2g...0/IMG_9539.JPG

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs42/f/20...b7709e6c44.jpg

http://d30opm7hsgivgh.cloudfront.net...CvAp19jh_c.jpg

http://d30opm7hsgivgh.cloudfront.net...IVcfqX6P_c.jpg

But I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the same kind of feeling/look to my own edits. I'm particularly interested in how to get the gorgeous tones to the colours and skintones. The blacks don't seem to be true or "hard" and are more washed out, yet the types of images are usually fairly contrasty in terms of shadows. If anyone can shed some light on how this is done, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

[Tony W]

Have you tried copying the images and in photoshop trying to colour correct with curves so that it looks like a 'normal' image?

Sometimes this can reveal a lot about how to achieve 'The Look' with your own images. It may be just as simple as either clipping shadows and highlights or reducing contrast in one or more channels. If you can get close with a correction it should give you some clues in what to do next.

I have not looked at all the images in depth however the last one on the beach looked to me like it could be 'corrected' by removing the blue from the shadows and red from the highlights. So for your images perhaps add blue to shadows and red to highlights?

[ryans.daughter]

Thanks Tony, I hadn't even considered that as an option!