How is this "look" achieved?

http://www.kallegustafsson.com/

 

Do any of you know the way (technique, action,filter etc.)

to achieve the look of Kalles's pictures???

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Best regards, Kim

Which look? If you browse her work you will see a wide range of techniques.

 

But to answer the essence of your question - it is done in the camera with professional

models made up by someone who probabably makes more per hour than you make in a

week, and lit by a real pro. Study lighting first and it will lead you to everything else you

need to know. It is not just a bunch of photoshop.

yeah there's different techniques in different photos. i see some shots with harsh sunlight,

probably some reflectors, and some polarizer and warming filters mixed in. I see some

cross-processing shots. I see some curves adjustments and hues and saturation mixtures.

This girl really has studied natural light and mastered it quite effectively. A lot of those

outdoor shots are in the toughest of lighting conditions, and she's walking away with usable

images.

There are also a lot of shots there that if they weren't "fashion art" would be heavily criticized in the critique forum for being badly exposed and color corrected. Cyan casts, Magenta casts, color crossover, murky shadows etc. aren't always art. Sometimes they're just bad photography.

 

In this case I'm 100% sure they are intentional and what the photographer wanted, but it does go to show that beauty is in the eye of the beholder sometimes.

As a starting point try shooting in the noon day sun and exposing for the highlights.

Assuming we are referring to this image: http://www.kallegustafsson.com/portfolio/fashion/fa_01.jpg

 

Like Bob said, there are color casts that would usually be considered mistakes. The most significant component of the look is the contrast masking. Just look at that specular reflection; at least that should be pure white, but it is not!

I could be wrong (probably am) but it looks like a polarizer was used in the above link which often gives weird color casts.

Many styles I see..

 

Some are plain pictures with messed contrast and color, some use contrast masking, some us lighting tools, what exactly are you looking for? Describe in more detail, and show us an exact example.

 

for example:

http://www.kallegustafsson.com/portfolio/fashion/fa_20.jpg

 

This is the typical look of contrast masking. but it can't be dome with that alone.

 

It started with some harder light, which already does half of the look which is achieved with contrast masking if you have lighting skills.

 

The whole point of such strong contrast masking is to get these jumpy transitions between light and dark which look a lot like brush strokes, and at the same time flatten the range, giving the whole image a somewhat painted look (flat color surfaces, extreamly high local contrast between different areas, like shadows, highlights etc.)

 

Sometimes people get that look while trying to retrieve shadow detail from bad slide scans. Which can be quite funny, because some don't even get what they have done.

 

And of course the obvious desaturation and messing with the color balance and crossover, which is pretty much besides the point.

And Bob is 100% right.

Some people Jawn at cheesy colorful Nature shots of flowers or kids with dogs, and feel almost physical pleasure while watching stuff like this, while others see it as

wierd and unconventional, or a technical mistake, and feel the same pleasure watching Nature calendars and photos cheerful kids and dogs.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

My favorite photographer is Gregory Crewdson. Some people stare at his photos for hours and feed upon the painterly colors and darkness underneath, while others

stare at them and call them psychotic, and the pictures boring snapshots.

I'd say the guy uses lots of 'tobacco filters', graduated and whole, in his outside shots. Of

course in PP the variables are endless.

Stupid question - what is contrast masking? Is this just setting up a levels adjustment layer

and masking it so it's effects to only certain portions of the image? or is it something

different?<br><br>

I'm particularly interested in <a href="http://www.kallegustafsson.com/portfolio/fashion/

fa_20.jpg" target="_blank">this effect</a><br><br>

It seems that might be more of an effect of flattening the curve in the curves dialogue.

And a lot of Photoshop. Just have a look at the link and click "Travel". This is a composite image, created im PS. Not that there is anything wrong with it - just an observation.

Not true Bob. If a photo shows a scantily clad woman, it'll score better than Ansel Adams

would.

Kier

 

The photo you are refering to is indeed contrast masking.

If you flaten the range with curves, you are only going to end up with a flat image, not this.

This is not a global image change, and can't be done as such.

 

Contrast masking changes the local transition between tones.

Though that is actually its side-effect, and not the main reason people usually use it. They usually use it to retrieve shadow detail. But it also does this, what you can see in that image, that "cartoon" look.

 

There are other ways to do it, like manually "painting" over the photo, or using dodge and burn.

If you look at high-end fashion ads with this effect, the best ones are usually achieved with a skilled painter/retoucher, who can almost repaint the entire image, the quick and easy way is to use contrast masking to the extreme, but them you get halos around edges, as you can even see to some extend in this image.

Not tho say his techique is "cheap" or anything, but some people do amazing stuff with a brush, which I find greater value in.

 

Anyway, about contrast masking.

 

To illustrate, unsharp mask is a variant of contrast masking.

In this case the same thing is done, only on a much larger scale, much larger radius.

The edges in this photo are more pronaunced, and surfaces are more separated, just like in paintings.

You can think of it as unsharp mask with a really big pixel radius.

 

It can be done either in the darkroom with conventional tools or in photoshop.

In photoshop, you copy the layer, and paste the duplicate on top, invert the new layer (negative), and blur it (experiment with different levels of blur). Then combine the two layers (either by using some merging modes, or simple transperency) and then go from there.

 

In this case, this is a photo shot un hard light, either hard studio light or sunlight, and this effect was done to it.

 

And the more obvious thing, is to reduce saturation and make the colors appear as there, but that's easy, you know that probably.

Thanks for all your useful replies.

 

Kim