How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

[ohhmygod]

Hi guys,

I signed up just to ask this question. I'm a hobbyist photographer with very basic post processing skill. I've been trying to achieve this post processing style but failed every time. I have Lightroom and Photoshop.

http://www.kayture.com/2015/03/it-wasnt-a-dream.html

http://www.kayture.com/2014/10/lovely.html

http://www.kayture.com/2014/12/double-life.html

How do they achieve such contrasty and professional look while still retain great details? I've tried pushing up the contrast but it just doesn't have the same look.

Thanks a lot for your help!

[klev]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

These things can contain many small adjustments, but I'll point out the most important stuff. One mistake people make when they're starting out is to rely too much on cranking up the curves. It creates a lot of issues, and it won't necessarily do what you want. Most people want very targeted details. They want specific things to stand out.

You want to avoid making this complicated. Making it complicated just gives you more places to screw something up just a little, at which point your layer stack will be a complete mess. This is even more important for someone who isn't great with photoshop, because they're more likely to mess something up. Avoiding too many adjustments can at least keep you from compounding the issue.

The background in some of these cases is darkened a little to a moderate amount to place emphasis on her. In some cases it's heavier toward the edges. Selective color and/or curves might be used for the unusual color palette tweaks here and there.

The girl's skintone is offset a bit to appear warmer on most of them. You mask it out to get that nice clean skintone. It's the best way to do it. Include the hair on the same or a separate mask if necessary. If necessary do the same for the eyes and lips. Adjust them to the desired look. Eyes often require a bit of fine retouching, not only for color but to get a nice focused look.

No one just cranked up curves or contrast sliders, which is why they didn't suffer your anticipated consequences.


I've started posting a reference to this thread too whenever someone asks a question like this. Tulack's references are quite straightforward, even if his views on histograms are somewhat misguided. I haven't tried the method Tulack mentioned. I have used anything I suggested.

[Tulack]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

It's a color contrast at first. Remove all parasitic colors, and bring the rest to analogous or split complimentary schemes. Most of all. Output 100 per cent depends on input. If you have different colors to start with, you would never have the same result. And of course you need to clean image before that

[Leon William]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

I would say these photos come from a great photographer rather than a good photo editor. Its so obvious that the minimal retouching has been done to these photograph as still you can see a lot of noises in them. The model faces fairly bright and not much pimples or scratches. And the all the photo nicely focused on to the model. The default blur from the lens itself do the job.

The other thing is tone maps. As you can see there is a contrasted color overlay definitions on every photo to create a specific mood. You can experiment with the gradient map to create such fantastic moods as it can change each and every light values to a specific colored tone. Then you can have a little bit exposure control in Light room to make such a fantastic final photo.

[Aladdin]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

It is all about the lens and the proper camera profile. This is definitely 70-200mm for outdoors and 85mm for indoors lenses.

Use some profiling software like Checkers to calibrate your camera profile as you convert from raw to psd.

Post processing is very minimal. Don't forget that DOF (depth of field) is tricking your eyes into thinking that special post work was done on the face, NO!

This is either Canon or Nikon, hard to tell.

[klev]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

Post processing is very minimal. Don't forget that DOF (depth of field) is tricking your eyes into thinking that special post work was done on the face, NO!

.

You know I've seen raw images shot under lighting that is very similar to this. I actually mentioned to do it in the simplest way possible, because it is very easy to overdo things. You should be able to see on some of these where they added a bit of falloff to the background brightness. That kind of stuff makes the face more distinguishable from its surroundings.

The only place I really disagree with you is profiling. That will confuse anyone who hasn't done it before, and it's not going to yield a perfect skintone with no color correction. The only place I have seen that is on youtube where they chose the image to fit the video. It's a waste of several hundred dollars to get the software set up + purchase a color checker if this is your goal.

Oh and I completely agree to do DOF in camera and use a longer lens. I missed that in my first post.

[Aladdin]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

I don't think $99 is much if you are a pro http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._Passport.html

It really is simple thing to do, take 3 pictures of the colorchecker (one for outdoor sunny, cloudy, indoor w strobe). Save as DNG.

Import each into the software that comes with it, Name the output profile the way you wish. The software will export the profile(s) into PS Camera profile folder. DONE.

When the time comes to convert within ACR, just pick the right profile that fits the condition. Not complicated at all.

I use it all the time at my studio, Actually, I did this only once in the studio, of course, when you change light setup or manufacturer, you have to redo, but, how often do you do this? Also when you change body or lens.

I name my profiles like this: N-Sunny-70 for Nikon 70-200 in sunny conditions, etc, etc or whatever naming convention you desire.

I have total of 9 profiles, 70-200, 85 & 50mm, each one has three, sunny, cloudy/overcast and Studio. I might add another for Flash since the studio uses strobes, however, I hardly use speed light, when I do, only for effect. But I should though.

Once you create the profile, you don't need to include the checker in every photo session.

ACR picks one for you, why don't you pick the profile that fits your needs.

[klev]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

It really is simple thing to do, take 3 pictures of the colorchecker (one for outdoor sunny, cloudy, indoor w strobe). Save as DNG.

Import each into the software that comes with it, Name the output profile the way you wish. The software will export the profile(s) into PS Camera profile folder. DONE.

Ohhh that has changed. I haven't purchased a color checker in a long time. Last time I did they were still called Gretag Macbeth color checkers *shoos kids off his lawn*. It was slightly less for the color checker, but any decent profile building software would have added at least a couple hundred.

That's still further than I've seen anything stretched just by profiles. My suggestion basically assumed photo from unknown source. I know the range skintones typically fall in over that kind of lighting condition output using capture one, camera raw, or darktable. I just considered from there to where these fell. I still agree nothing heavy. I was not familiar with that strategy or that Xrite bundled anything with it now.

I agree strobes are totally different. The spectral composition of the light differs which is why it makes sense to have separate profiles.

[Aladdin]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

Profiles are just a starting point, they give accurate representation of color providing that the monitor is also calibrated.

To my surprise, I found "Nikon Camera Portrait v4" profile to be very close to profiles I created, a tad on the darker side, then again, brightness is subjective.

My advice, if you don't want to spend the money, install your camera profiles or the ones supplied by Adobe, however, don't use the default ones like "Adobe Standard" or "ACR 4.x", stay away from them.

Both Nikon and Canon did very good job supplying Adobe with valid profiles, they are part of the basic PS installation, I think, not sure, I did it a while ago, if I recall, I think I had to install them, just perform simple search on how to install camera profiles and where to get them from, all are free.

Once again, profiles offer basic standard starting point, you still need to do local color adjustments.

[klev]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

Both Nikon and Canon did very good job supplying Adobe with valid profiles, they are part of the basic PS installation, I think, not sure, I did it a while ago, if I recall, I think I had to install them, just perform simple search on how to install camera profiles and where to get them from, all are free.

I'll look into that. Thanks. I rarely use camera raw, but this might be a chance to pick it up again.

[Tulack]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

Or you can start from scratch, by using Log profiles, without LR or ACR raping your images.

[Aladdin]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

Klev,Tulack: How do you bypass ACR if you are using PS? or any RAW converter? Unless you would use manufacturer supplied converter like Nikon Viewnx, however, it is an extra step in the process that will come in the way of automating the process of picking up a raw file, by PS, run it through a script or processor, convert, apply some scripts then output the end result.

[klev]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

Klev,Tulack: How do you bypass ACR if you are using PS? or any RAW converter?

I typically use other raw converters. My preference is typically Capture One or Darktable. I've used Capture One since version 3, so I'm quite familiar with it. Darktable is free/opensource, which is nice.

Camera profiles are always necessary somewhere, regardless of whether they're LUT or matrix based. Tulack seems to prefer processing methods that use something other than a gamma 1.8-2.4 basis for their initial rasterized output. The space affects the impact of common adjustments, so it's reasonable to be concerned about this.

Here's a nice explanation of linearity issues, although some things can be accomplished in other spaces. These relate to rendering. Raw processing is similar, albeit in a slightly later stage. There's some initial signal processing before its written.

[Tulack]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

Yes, I use custom camera profile to remove native camera and LR adjustments. Then it goes to LogC and after that to PS.

[Aladdin]

Re: How to achieve this deep vibrant colour style?

With due respect to all members of this board, Let's keep it simple, as the old saying goes "KISS"

We are scaring off newcomers to this board, the process is REALLY REALLY simple.

I am done with this particular thread...