The "Look" of professional Photos

[benlpu]

Hello all together!

I´m sry for my bad english, i try to give my best to describe my Problem.

Well, i ask myself how to retouch photos to get "a look" like these:


here, they´re desaturated, but it can´t be all to get this "look"
- http://www.adriantkubica.com/75601/6...portfolio/lost


- http://fotostapel.de/fotos/aussen/

- http://www.berufsfotografen.com/mich...-muenchen/4857

- http://schoepgens.com/work/portfolio/commercial


- http://matneidhardt.tumblr.com/


Thanks to all for your help!!

Greeting
Ben

[klev]

Re: The "Look" of professionel Photos

If you look up my posts and go back far enough, you'll find responses to very similar questions in greater detail. It's easy enough for me to guess what you consider to be the look. You'll have a list of things. The first is lighting, and it is important. The second would be global adjustments. Many of these look like they had custom settings applied at a global level, which leads some people to believe that the work is predominantly global over a given image. The other important aspect is that in most of these, the subject is adjusted separately to some degree. Skintone is adjusted, sky is darkened behind them, one of those sites has the corners darkened on almost every image, etc. It doesn't matter. It's just a lot of regional adjustment and detailing. Try starting off with the broadest adjustments to block things in. This means white balance, curve if necessary (shouldn't be anything crazy), and whatever other color correction only taken to a level where it doesn't have negative side effects. Then look at the various regions and see what needs to be changed. Then move to even smaller details getting eyes or subtle shadows to work as needed. It's basically a top down approach. If you aren't able to identify the details mentioned above, you need to start there or you'll hit a wall pretty fast. Also as far as isolating things, it doesn't really matter how you do it. In some cases masking works best. In others you can just isolate them by color.

Also I can't stress the importance of lighting enough. Achieving any of this would quickly become impractical with poor initial lighting.

[AKMac]

Re: The "Look" of professionel Photos

If you look up my posts and go back far enough, you'll find responses to very similar questions in greater detail. It's easy enough for me to guess what you consider to be the look. You'll have a list of things. The first is lighting, and it is important. The second would be global adjustments. Many of these look like they had custom settings applied at a global level, which leads some people to believe that the work is predominantly global over a given image. The other important aspect is that in most of these, the subject is adjusted separately to some degree. Skintone is adjusted, sky is darkened behind them, one of those sites has the corners darkened on almost every image, etc. It doesn't matter. It's just a lot of regional adjustment and detailing. Try starting off with the broadest adjustments to block things in. This means white balance, curve if necessary (shouldn't be anything crazy), and whatever other color correction only taken to a level where it doesn't have negative side effects. Then look at the various regions and see what needs to be changed. Then move to even smaller details getting eyes or subtle shadows to work as needed. It's basically a top down approach. If you aren't able to identify the details mentioned above, you need to start there or you'll hit a wall pretty fast. Also as far as isolating things, it doesn't really matter how you do it. In some cases masking works best. In others you can just isolate them by color.

Also I can't stress the importance of lighting enough. Achieving any of this would quickly become impractical with poor initial lighting.

I think this is excellent advice.

[Vernon]

Re: The "Look" of professionel Photos

If you look up my posts and go back far enough, you'll find responses to very similar questions in greater detail. It's easy enough for me to guess what you consider to be the look. You'll have a list of things. The first is lighting, and it is important. The second would be global adjustments. Many of these look like they had custom settings applied at a global level, which leads some people to believe that the work is predominantly global over a given image. The other important aspect is that in most of these, the subject is adjusted separately to some degree. Skintone is adjusted, sky is darkened behind them, one of those sites has the corners darkened on almost every image, etc. It doesn't matter. It's just a lot of regional adjustment and detailing. Try starting off with the broadest adjustments to block things in. This means white balance, curve if necessary (shouldn't be anything crazy), and whatever other color correction only taken to a level where it doesn't have negative side effects. Then look at the various regions and see what needs to be changed. Then move to even smaller details getting eyes or subtle shadows to work as needed. It's basically a top down approach. If you aren't able to identify the details mentioned above, you need to start there or you'll hit a wall pretty fast. Also as far as isolating things, it doesn't really matter how you do it. In some cases masking works best. In others you can just isolate them by color.

Also I can't stress the importance of lighting enough. Achieving any of this would quickly become impractical with poor initial lighting.

Very well said, klev.