getting this commercial landscape look?

[bbvds]

hi!

i've been reading this forum (which is a goldmine btw but still haven't been able to find what i'd love to learn or how to achieve it

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lekoil/9570032581/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lekoil/10473178375/

all pictures are done and retouched by a great guy Loïc Lequere

could you help me out with a routine to get this kind of commercial look seen in car pictures? lab mode retouch? how does it get such a perfect look?

thanks a lot in advance!

[Tony W]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

TBH I cannot see anything that suggests special treatment in post here other than desaturating colour and shooting originals on cloudy/overcast days.

[bbvds]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

thanks for your answer!

when you say desaturation you mean he could desaturate each color separetly? (not the whole picture)? this might sound silly but I'm only learning

from the guy himself he doesn't shoot at precise hours as it's often pictures made on road trips and he doesn't have a lot of time (thought he would only shoot at golden hours)

guess there's a bit of dodge and burn too?

still wondering how he gets the same hazy/foggy look on all his pictures (hope it doesn't wait for bad weather to get good pix:P)

anyone to help me "deconstruct" his style?

thanks!

[Tony W]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

The impression I get from those particular images is an overall desaturation but it is possible that this was done selectively. D&B quite possible. Hazy foggy could be achieved as simply as making contrast adjustments.

TBH it is often a waste of time trying to deconstruct a style by just guessing at what post processing involved unless you have a starting point image to apply the style to.

You will learn much if you actually go out and shoot some similar subject matter under similar conditions (overcast) and then start to play with post processing to achieve either your own look or a copy of others

[Repairman]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

Just to endorse Tony's comment about having a play with processing. Many of the important colour tools in PS work with sliders. Occasionally, spend an hour or so pushing them to extremes and see what happens. Sure, you'll get some whacky effects but you'll also get some nice surprises that have everyday practical applications. You will soon read the clues that suggest how the pictures have been treated. Multiple overlaid treatments, naturally, are a devil to unravel!

[bbvds]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

thanks to both of you!

Actually I have a bad tendency to wait and try to collect as much info I can instead of working on the real stuff! After reading you I gave it a try ...

and I'm pretty satisfied because with what I've been learning on this forum (thanks to you all guys I tend to slowly (there are sooo many things to learn which is amazing) get the kind of result I wish for for now

I'll keep on trying/making mistake and hope to get a nice level of retouching someday

[Tony W]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

Good luck and I am sure you will get the results you are looking for with some practice and a little patience. Making mistakes should also be thought of as a learning experience as you will profit from those mistakes and try a different way.

[bbvds]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

yep, actually I've been "exploring" for 2-3days making mistakes but it's still fun

thx!

[Pics2]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

These pictures are really well crafted. It should take you more like 2-3 years
But, really, he must be using really good full frame camera, tripod, the light is carefully chosen. Without planning, just taking pictures down the road? Yes, but just an experienced photographer can recognize great scene even from the car and stop to take the picture.
The lighting you see is more like hazy day. There are clouds, but not too dense, so the sunlight is getting through strong enough to make it directional, which leads to good texture, detail and 3d look.A completely over coast day wouldn't produce such an effect. It's more like one layer soft box in terms of studio photography.

[Rust]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

Reminds me of Loic le Quèrè`s work. Tried to email him, asking about he could give me some tips to get better adjusting color. No response

[daygraphics]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

bbvds... you can get very a very similar look by finding a similar original [Overcast day] and doing some desaturation. You can do it overall- many of these images seem to have a slight blue cast to them - or selectively. In Adjust/hue/Saturation you can desaturate the channels (master, red, green, etc.) individually and with different amounts. One of these is desaturated fully, and then selectively color correcting for a blue tint. The other I desatuarated all but the yellow and red channel. I have noted, by looking at the gallery of pictures that you reference, the photo's exposures are longer than usual. That is apparent in many of the shots (stream water doesn't have rivlets and torrents - very smooth - like a drag capture) I believe this very much adds to the misty, dreamy look.

[klev]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

People are right on with the saturation comments and references. I see some amount of color correction that may have been applied at a regional level. These are mostly overcast shots, which leads me to believe that certain things wouldn't have come from the camera that way. In the first one the building on the left has a lot of detail and a fair amount of saturation, yet it's quite dark. I suspect it was deepened to extend the contrast range of the shot. The weather suggests a high humidity level, which would give you a bit more haze toward the background portions due atmospheric reflections. The light house seems a bit too sharp too, so I think they did some work there. Otherwise you would have that overall cast that builds up as you go further and further out due to what I mentioned. Basically moisture in the air reflects the blue of the sky. The sky itself is blue due to the wavelengths that are refracted in a negative direction (refracted). Anyway you can actually create a lot of interesting implications regarding distance just by adjusting the appearance of haze. When everything appears with extreme clarity, it tends to feel somewhat surreal, as that isn't how we view it from day to day.

[DaIllestBeast]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

I tried a few things on my end, and I think I got kinda close-ish. The photos you referred to have a more blue tint to them now that I'm looking again but I'm too lazy to go back and change it... but anyway if you want to know what I did for this one just let me know and I'll put it in here, just don't wanna go through the hassle of typing it if I'm off the mark haha

The original is here:

http://burtn.deviantart.com/art/golden-fearns-181262968

and I grabbed some extra clouds here:

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Cloud-Stock-2-185857404

**edit: I had to compress it a bunch so it looks all messed up (and I overdid it with the high pass ehhhh) but anyway I just posted it on my page so you can get a better idea:

http://daillestbeast.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Cloudy-Test-412353186

[Rust]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

I think you are close, looks good Do you have the psd?

[DaIllestBeast]

Re: getting this commercial landscape look?

I still have the PSD but I've already merged most of the layers :/ My computer isn't very good so I can't keep all my layers open for long. Here is what I did though:

1- Decreased saturation quite a bit
2- Changed levels a tad
3- Adjusted curves: dropped reds and greens and increased blues (not too much at this stage)
4- Copied all the layers to a new one, adjusted layer to black and white, set to darken and adjusted to bring the colors back in
5- Copied all the layers to a new one again, did gradient map with a purple/blue scheme (this is probably a main part where I went wrong I should have stuck to darker blues) set to hard light and adjusted opacity again
6- I did a very slight colouring with a large soft brush set to 5 opacity and 20 flow in black to darken certain areas of the picture
7- New layer with black again but set layer to color to desaturate parts of the image that needed it
8- Another new layer with a small soft white brush to fog up the background a bit
9- Copy everything to a new layer again, add in the clouds from the other pic with an overlay, masked the layer and used a gradient on the mask to have it apply itself gradually
10- High pass filter to sharpen the details (I wouldn't do this for the look you're going for though because they're not very sharp, or I would add a mask to it to only sharpen certain areas of the image)

I hope that all makes sense... let me know if you have questions