How to get this color effect?

[birkaany]

Hello,

One of my clients asked me to retouch their wedding photos like these examples:

http://imgur.com/7G26hiw
http://imgur.com/71Hrn2D

http://imgur.com/w6hHwxW
http://imgur.com/Xufpung

I've tried a few things on original photos but couldn't reach the final work.
Any idea how to get such results?

[Kjonnnn]

Re: How to get this color effect?

As you know there ar probably a hundred ways of doing something. With that said it looks like they played around with color grading using complementary colors. I'd try a GRADIENT MAP. Use brown/gold in the darks and some shade of green in the highlights. Play around with that balance Change the layer blend to Overlay or Soft Light. Reduce the opacity. Play and experiment.

[klev]

Re: How to get this color effect?

Those are kind of cheesy, so I would do a couple and make sure she actually wants what she says she wants. Clients can be fickle. These have vignetting and some selective color adjustments. Background was made quite cyan. The skin, eyes, and lips may have some separate adjustment. Brightness was definitely bumped up a bit on the skin compared to those backgrounds.

Aside from the background (even then I wouldn't recommend it) I wouldn't use gradient maps for this. I definitely wouldn't turn things to softlight or overlay. That just blocks up shadows and makes everything look bad.

[Kjonnnn]

Re: How to get this color effect?

Now I remember why I stopped visiting here.

[klev]

Re: How to get this color effect?

There's no need to stop visiting. I offered alternate advice because those methods offer very little control and break easily. They're a recipe for frustration if you need to get through a large number of images (note wedding images). I was trying to spare someone else the pain of that. Try out softlight blending and pay attention to the shadows. You'll immediately see my issue with it.