How do you get this effect?

[TreesOfMyTime]

Originally Posted by jagerman

Why would want to???

Why not? It is an interesting look and if you would like to reproduce it keep watching this thread, If not. . . . . your choice.

To each his own.

[phased]

The simplest answer is often the one most likely to be right. To me it looks straight out of camera, minimal post, if any, and that would only be curves, colour balance etc.

There are hardly any shadows indicating a very defuse light, so it could be shot under an overcast sky. Possibly a balanced softbox camera left, but its hard to say.

- Mike

[Miss Liz]

it looks to me like the person made a background copy, set it to overlay or soft light, and then added gaussian blur. maybe they changed the opacity to make it no so contrasty. also, they might have used diffuse glow. but it doesnt look clear OR sharp to me.

[xilovely]

i thinks she want to make a picture with blending effect, or how to make a picture really sharp, and soft

[Tpage]

Photography: Strobist stuff at work maybe? There is an off camera hard light at low camera left which looks to be at about the same level as the ambient at the guys distance (brighter for the girls as they are closer). The direction is up and right to avoid casting shadows on the left wall or the floor. There may also be off camera flash above and to the rear of the subjects helping to fill the floor behind and give the hair lighting - but this could just be bright overhead ambient.

PP: I suspect - duplicate layer > invert > add diffuse glow > Invert > change blend mode to overlay/softlight or multiply and adjust opacity. (very low level orton effect?)