How is this type of coloring achieved?

[jos_awad]

This is an instagram image by user Sam Kolder. His images seem to have an orange/teal look however whites and blacks are quite neutral. Also skin tones are really great! Does anyone have any advice on how to acheive this look?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTmGLfNAFgj/?hl=en

[klev]

Re: How is this type of coloring achieved?

Whites and blacks are not exactly neutral here, but there's nothing resembling orange. Your display may be off. The bright reflections in the water and on his skin are tinted a bit red. The darker parts of the water are tinted a bit. The image has some vignetting and may have been selectively darkened in a couple areas.

My suspicion is that he used primarily selective color (or a similar tool) and a vignette. My reasoning is that unadjusted, reflections and bright areas are not that saturated relative to other things hit by the same light. You will of course have to play around with it a bit to achieve something repeatable. I suggest starting with an image shot under similar lighting. Compare to this one while you work. If you really compare to tell whether you're going in the right direction, you should be able to achieve something similar in appearance.

[Flashtones]

Re: How is this type of coloring achieved?

Does anyone have any advice on how to acheive this look?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTmGLfNAFgj/?hl=en

Shoot at sunset.

[jos_awad]

Re: How is this type of coloring achieved?

Whites and blacks are not exactly neutral here, but there's nothing resembling orange. Your display may be off. The bright reflections in the water and on his skin are tinted a bit red. The darker parts of the water are tinted a bit. The image has some vignetting and may have been selectively darkened in a couple areas.

My suspicion is that he used primarily selective color (or a similar tool) and a vignette. My reasoning is that unadjusted, reflections and bright areas are not that saturated relative to other things hit by the same light. You will of course have to play around with it a bit to achieve something repeatable. I suggest starting with an image shot under similar lighting. Compare to this one while you work. If you really compare to tell whether you're going in the right direction, you should be able to achieve something similar in appearance.

Thank you for your reply! I am using a macbook pro 2016 for editing. I was using the 'Color LCD' display profile and skin tones looked very natural. On reading your comment i switched to Apple RGB (not sure if it is more accurate) and the skin tones look very RED as you mentioned. Could you please recommend a display profile? I edit mostly in sRGB for use on the web. The colours in sRGB and Apple RGB profiles look very different from those seen on a mobile phone.

[skoobey]

Re: How is this type of coloring achieved?

Adobe RGB is industry standard.

Anyway, I have a slight suspicion he is using the "douche filter"

Let's get serious, vignetting and global DNB are obviously present, an apart from that selective color(blacks, reds, yellow and green channel) and hue saturation combined with playing with a blue channel in curves to give shadows a blue tint will get you there. Many of these were shot at sunset, search google for golden hour.

[Tony W]

Re: How is this type of coloring achieved?

...I was using the 'Color LCD' display profile and skin tones looked very natural. On reading your comment i switched to Apple RGB (not sure if it is more accurate) and the skin tones look very RED as you mentioned. Could you please recommend a display profile? I edit mostly in sRGB for use on the web. The colours in sRGB and Apple RGB profiles look very different from those seen on a mobile phone.

Your display profile should really be one that is produced by a calibration device to a given standard.

You cannot profile to sRGB, Apple RGB, Adobe RGB or any other editing/working space.

I would suggest at this time (without calibration equipment) that you stick to editing in sRGB and hope that your monitor colour and brightness is ok for others to view your images as intended - but you can expect vast differences in others screen views due to wildly varying conditions between uncalibrated devices

[skoobey]

Re: How is this type of coloring achieved?

Your display profile should really be one that is produced by a calibration device to a given standard.

You cannot profile to sRGB, Apple RGB, Adobe RGB or any other editing/working space.

I would suggest at this time (without calibration equipment) that you stick to editing in sRGB and hope that your monitor colour and brightness is ok for others to view your images as intended - but you can expect vast differences in others screen views due to wildly varying conditions between uncalibrated devices

Very true.

[klev]

Re: How is this type of coloring achieved?

Thank you for your reply! I am using a macbook pro 2016 for editing. I was using the 'Color LCD' display profile and skin tones looked very natural. On reading your comment i switched to Apple RGB (not sure if it is more accurate) and the skin tones look very RED as you mentioned. Could you please recommend a display profile? I edit mostly in sRGB for use on the web. The colours in sRGB and Apple RGB profiles look very different from those seen on a mobile phone.

Apple's color synch and profile interface are actually quite silly, because they list a lot of things that aren't display profiles at all.

If you want a good profile, you have to purchase a colorimeter. I like the i1 Display Pro or anything from X-rite. Otherwise there's no way to measure the output from your display. Some people occasionally share profiles if they happen to have the same machine and both are fairly new. This will still have a fairly high level of variance, but it may be better than what you get from Color LCD. If it makes that look orange, then I think that could be a solution, assuming that they choose native targets wherever possible.

It's not a perfect solution, because you have several points of potential variability and it's not really verifiable. It is however likely to be a more reasonable approximation than Color LCD, which has been applied as a default to various displays with highly variable characteristics.

I would also avoid the "calibrate" tool in color synch, because it's terrible. If you use it, make sure you don't overwrite any system profiles. This is just one of many areas where Apple regularly annoys me. They often force you to do things a particular way by refusing to support common standards or conventions.

I agree with Tony W. There's nothing wrong with editing in sRGB. Colors that fall outside sRGB and within Adobe RGB are often problematic for the web and even in printing. It's also possible to exceed Adobe RGB. I have seen issues where raw processing of very bright reds could lead clipping.