Help me achieve those tones

[cloude1080]

Hi guys, please help me turn this image

http://www.prophotonut.com/wp-conten...9/08/1-4_3.jpg

into

http://www.prophotonut.com/wp-conten...9/08/1-4_2.jpg

If you have a look in
http://www.prophotonut.com/2009/08/1...nd-techniques/

you will see that those pictures are taken with different exposure setting & slightly different angle.

I couldn't replicate the tone of the 2nd image.
I notice that it has a lot of highlight & some creamy, pinky colors blended into each other. I extracted dominant colors with color palette tool, and tried several blend ways with no success. I'm not very good with color, so my analysis could be wrong.

Another similar tone I would like to know
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamour0...l-1347049@N23/

Any help would be really appreciated

[Dropt]

I'd go for a reverse vignetting, some color fill in screen mode, and the shadow/highlight command, each to modulate with a mask. You can tell the contrast has been switched locally in several areas.

[Tony W]

Are you Damien Lovegrove by any chance? If not why are you posting his copyrighted images and asking for help in turning one that was shot for dramatic effect to one that was shot for a softer look? - the guy offers training courses based in the UK if you are interested.

If you are looking to achieve these effects in your own images then please post one of your originals and quote the look you are after and I am sure you will be offered plenty of help and advice

[Siciliana]

Um, looking at the blog, he kind of spells it out: different exposure+ diffuse glow.

[cloude1080]

Originally Posted by Dropt

I'd go for a reverse vignetting, some color fill in screen mode, and the shadow/highlight command, each to modulate with a mask. You can tell the contrast has been switched locally in several areas.

Thanks Dropt, what I'm after is the soft & creamy color, which I can't quite get it.

Originally Posted by Tony W

Are you Damien Lovegrove by any chance? If not why are you posting his copyrighted images and asking for help in turning one that was shot for dramatic effect to one that was shot for a softer look? - the guy offers training courses based in the UK if you are interested.

If you are looking to achieve these effects in your own images then please post one of your originals and quote the look you are after and I am sure you will be offered plenty of help and advice

@Tony: No, I'm not Damien. I'm South East Asian, so taking his course is kinda out of option. I post his image because it was shot in a similar condition with the shot I want to achieve.

[Tony W]

cloude1080, I understand your desire to mimic another photographers look but my thoughts were that although providing a link to anothers work is acceptable to ask to alter an image taken by that photographer whatever the reason could possible be seen as copyright infringement.

As you have got your own image shot in similar conditions this would make a much better starting point and as I suggested if you post it here you will get help and advice.

[RobertAsh]

Originally Posted by cloude1080

@Tony: No, I'm not Damien. I'm South East Asian, so taking his course is kinda out of option. I post his image because it was shot in a similar condition with the shot I want to achieve.

Hi Cloude,

I think Tony's point is that posting a url to a Flickr stream or website gallery of another photographer is ok, but just posting another photographer's image (or a url to it) with no easily apparent context is not ok.

[cloude1080]

Originally Posted by RobertAsh

Hi Cloude,

I think Tony's point is that posting a url to a Flickr stream or website gallery of another photographer is ok, but just posting another photographer's image (or a url to it) with no easily apparent context is not ok.

Point taken, problem is I have no stock image in similar condition to his image.

I give a try anyway, my image, hack away

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzyai...in/photostream

[Tony W]

Ok just as a starting point as I am unsure where you want to take this image! Curve layer reduce contrast RGB overall and used a fairly agressive reverse S curve on the blue channel.

Is this anywhere near where you want to take it?

[cloude1080]

Originally Posted by Tony W

Ok just as a starting point as I am unsure where you want to take this image! Curve layer reduce contrast RGB overall and used a fairly agressive reverse S curve on the blue channel.

Is this anywhere near where you want to take it?

Hi Tony, it's close but not quite. The overall constrast is reduced, but I can't see the color and the warm/fuzzy/pinkiest feeling the original photo bring.

[Tony W]

I was not trying for an exact match, your image very different as far as overall lightness goes compared to your first example - unless you mimic the overall look including background and light direction you are going to get a different feel.

The point I was trying to make is that you should be able to introduce any shade you want by adjusting a curves layer. You should be able to either apply overall colour change or bias changes in either highlight and shadows just working with a single curve layer. You could also make selective changes by masking.

[cloude1080]

Originally Posted by Tony W

I was not trying for an exact match, your image very different as far as overall lightness goes compared to your first example - unless you mimic the overall look including background and light direction you are going to get a different feel.

The point I was trying to make is that you should be able to introduce any shade you want by adjusting a curves layer. You should be able to either apply overall colour change or bias changes in either highlight and shadows just working with a single curve layer. You could also make selective changes by masking.

Tony, i know my image is different. And I dont have any image with similar lighting. That's exactly why I posted Damien image.
Even with his image, I could not mimic his look. Make me curious about his way

[Siciliana]

I think you will be better off to shoot at a brighter exposure to begin with, but here is a rough fake on a couple of your photos. These aren't that great since I only took 30 seconds, but here are some things to play with: pulling the dark end of the curve up, warming the image using curves--particularly in shadows, or warming filter. Stamp image and run the diffuse glow filter to taste and experiment with opacity/blend mode. Gradient map if you want with peachy highlights and warm brown shadows.

I hope you don't mind, I also used another image of yours that was more similar to the posted image.

Please note that this color on these is out of whack and not very nice right now, I just wanted to show quickly that you can pull your images in that direction. I'll leave it up to you to find the right combination of shooting and post.