Golden sunny tint

[Guest]

Hi,

I understand this might have been asked a lot before. In this picture the subject is standing by the window so it's supposed to be just natural light:

http://syndication.artpartner.com/Co.../1/AP12418.jpg

Could be that this ha been shot on film. Yet, how they got the golden sunny tint?

I am experimenting with gradient layer set on linear light (add) and reduce the fill; I clip a hue/sat and set it to colorize and play with sat/and hue. Lightness is brought down to show some of the effect. This way I get a bit of fog/glare effect which is nice but far from the finished image above. The overall density is affected. The other way I am experimenting is with color balance and luminosity masks (based on the red and blue channels + calculations) so I can set yellowith highlight but again I believe to be far from that. I understand some masking might be required in order to dial down some yellow so that it doesn't look like everything is yellow.

Am I in the right direction?

Thanks

[Tony W]

Re: Golden sunny tint

You are guessing that the subject is standing by a window. It could just as easily be a studio set with a tall softbox as the main light plus a fill from low camera right.

There is no indication that this has been shot on film but that does not mean it has not.

The golden sunny tint is easily achievable with either a scanned film or digital image regardless of the colour of the illuminant.

Select an area of background just close to right side of hair and click on grey dropper. This will get you very close to the look of a typical camera neutral profile or most neutral looking slide film, in either of the scenarios listed above.

I think the direction you are going is complicating the whole process of getting a nice looking image where attention to detail with light source and balancing the shadows with fill is the first step then a relatively simple application of WB in raw will do the job or adding another step by going into PS and selecting your colour tool of choice

[Guest]

Re: Golden sunny tint

I think the direction you are going is complicating the whole process of getting a nice looking image

The idea came when I realized that using some (tinted) fog and playing with opacity (fill) the density of the image can be decreased. Blending can be softlight, screen or linear dodge (add). I believe that if the highlights appears to have an overall color cast the mind will assume the rest of the image also has that color cast. So, for instante, the right part of the image may not have had a proper fill but that can be recovered by putting some glare (I happen to see that a lot in cinematography).

Also, I am interested in the idea of mixing a base color with a tinted fog just to experiment. Has anyone tried this already?

[Joeu]

Re: Golden sunny tint

OK, first post here, but not new to PS.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me as though a Curves adjustment in the b channel in Lab mode would accomplish this effect. Effectively, you would be introducing a yellow color cast into the image, but still have control of the amount of change in the highlights and shadows.

So, did I misunderstand the question?

[Sabrina81]

Re: Golden sunny tint

Hi,

I understand this might have been asked a lot before. In this picture the subject is standing by the window so it's supposed to be just natural light:

http://syndication.artpartner.com/Co.../1/AP12418.jpg

Could be that this ha been shot on film. Yet, how they got the golden sunny tint?

I am experimenting with gradient layer set on linear light (add) and reduce the fill; . . . . .
Am I in the right direction?

Impossible to say without seeing the image you're working on. A method that gives a pleasing golden tone on one image could wreck a different image. You need to post an image that doesn't have your experimental edits. This isn't a word problem. It's a visual problem.

[Guest]

Re: Golden sunny tint

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me as though a Curves adjustment in the b channel in Lab mode would accomplish this effect.

Maybe lab does it more gently? Otherwise I don't see much of a difference between Lab B channel and RGB Blue channel but then I'd love to do it without torturing existing pixels.

Impossible to say without seeing the image you're working on. [...] It's a visual problem.

I will be posting one anytime soon although it's not the exact scene.

[Guest]

Re: Golden sunny tint

I found an image and applied what I believe is a golden tint and some glare. I may have overdone it though. I realize color grading has a lot to do with local adjustmens while this is only global effect. Yet, it's a start.

[Tony W]

Re: Golden sunny tint

I found an image and applied what I believe is a golden tint and some glare. I may have overdone it though. I realize color grading has a lot to do with local adjustmens while this is only global effect. Yet, it's a start.

I stand by my earlier comment about overcomplicating a simple issue.

You mention not torturing pixels yet you have produced an example with 8 layers - when one layer would suffice. In the process of applying these levels you have blocked hair detail

L*a*b* is of no benefit in this case and data loss while probably irrelevant in 16 bit is still there and in 8 bit a loss of around 30 levels may not be acceptable.

For me the 'Golden sunny tint' has simply not worked in fact it appears to be a Caucasian with a touch of yellow jaundice. But if that was really the look you were going for fine.

Still nothing in your layered edit suggests that this cannot be achieved just as effectively with one or two moves either camera raw or PS curve layer.
Attached is my edit of the original with a simple WB and small exposure change in ACR and a final tweak in the Hue/Sat panel. Of course the edit has been applied globally although easy enough to do locally as required

BTW it was not meant to copy your edit but is merely my view of 'Golden sunny tint' (as per your magazine colour shot), with the intention of demonstrating just how easy and quick it should be to do this job

[Sabrina81]

Re: Golden sunny tint

Here are four methods. Each can be adjusted to shift the hue towards red or yellow, and also increase the strength of the effect.

1. A curves adjustment layer with a mask for isolate skin tones.

2. A selective color adjustment layer. In the Reds panel: more red, less magenta, more yellow.

3. Topaz Clarity, adjusting the hue, saturation and luminance in the oranges. (Also adjusted blues for the sky and visor.)

4. A B&W adjustment layer in soft light mode. Add tint and reduce layer opacity to around 60 percent.

Result of each method shown here:
https://s18.postimg.org/5jd8nly87/goldtone.jpg



For a deeper tanned look: Select skin tones, open a B&W adjustment layer (the selection will create a mask), change blend mode to Multiply, add tint, reduce layer opacity to 50 percent, more or less, depending how strong you want the darkening effect to be.

Result:
https://s21.postimg.org/yjee827bb/goldtone2.jpg

Increase layer opacity to deepen tan:
https://s18.postimg.org/tnhluvrex/goldtone2a.jpg

[skoobey]

Re: Golden sunny tint

People just don't want to believe that retouching includes introducing color, not just fixing what's there.

[Guest]

Re: Golden sunny tint

For a deeper tanned look: Select skin tones, open a B&W adjustment layer (the selection will create a mask), change blend mode to Multiply

Yes, I remember your suggestion about hue/sat in multiply mode and then play with opacity and saturation slider and that worked great.

All methods provide good skin tone but what it's missing is the glare or the foggy effect. I was considering a solid color layer adjustment in soft light mode and paint with a soft brush in linear light (add).

*
*
On a seperate note, what happens technically when I paste the cyan channel into a new layer in the current RGB document and change its blending mode?

I have found that the cyan channel in linear light brings back a lot of detail and that could be used for toning (dodging) and sharpening as well. Also, the yellow channel in multiply can be used for toning (burning). Each of them in a seperate group with a hide all mask where I can paint with a soft brush to reveal the effect.

[Tony W]

Re: Golden sunny tint

People just don't want to believe that retouching includes introducing color, not just fixing what's there.

Care to expand on that?

[Sabrina81]

Re: Golden sunny tint

what it's missing is the glare or the foggy effect.

Fog and glare are very different. Can you post an image that has the effect you're trying to describe?

[klev]

Re: Golden sunny tint

Am I in the right direction?

Thanks

No. You are making it way too complicated. When you make things this complicated, it takes many hours to achieve something worse than you could accomplish in (at most) 2-3 hours total.

This was definitely not shot on film, and it doesn't even look like film. You get the softer light from the diffusion and reflection. It was shot using window light or a simulation of that. Either way you have a large source, which you can see from the highlights in the eyes. You achieve appropriate contrast by darkening one side of the face a bit, although you might have to pay attention to the anatomy when you create masks for that purpose. It's just darkening an existing shadow. The eyes stand out, because they're at least slightly retouched. You adjust them to balance out the image and the gaze.

This is one of the most straightforward images you have linked to date. Don't complicate it. When you talk about highlights and shadows, photoshop has algorithms which allow it to decide what constitutes a highlight or shadow, and they may not coincide with what you want. When you keep things simple, you leave less room for the software to break them.

I found an image and applied what I believe is a golden tint and some glare. I may have overdone it though. I realize color grading has a lot to do with local adjustmens while this is only global effect. Yet, it's a start.

This is a terrible approach, but your choice of image isn't helping. It won't look realistic there. The idea of a global effect is completely wrong. You achieve most of the falloff on the subject by way of lighting. The rest of it can be achieved with typical color correction methods. You might need to adjust some areas more than others, which is why you need to make local corrections.

I suspect you will make a lot more progress when you stop making everything so complicated. Also don't worry about torturing pixels or LAB. Torturing pixels tends to make banding more visible. It's because integer math has to work with whole numbers, so 5/2 becomes 2 rather than 2.5 (yes it rounds down by convention).

[Guest]

Re: Golden sunny tint

This was definitely not shot on film, and it doesn't even look like film. You get the softer light from the diffusion and reflection. It was shot using window light or a simulation of that. Either way you have a large source, which you can see from the highlights in the eyes.

By the way those are other images from the same session:

http://www.freebirdprod.com/wsj-alas...ett-johansson/

(It's very usual for this photographer to shoot on film)

One more cover for the same magazine:

http://cdn.thefashionography.com/wp-...une-2013-5.jpg


Also, this made me think about:

People just don't want to believe that retouching includes introducing color, not just fixing what's there.