Anyone Uses Yellow Sky Action

<p>h<a href="http://yellowskyactions.com/">ttp://yellowskyactions.com/</a><br>

I've seen one photographer uses predominately just this action so far but I'm sure there are a few more out there. What does everyone think?<br>

To me, I think one or two pictures in a set are fine. But a whole set that's 80% of nothing but this action is driving me a little nuts. Everything is blown out pinkish and yellowish in these photos but apparently that photog who uses this actions is pretty popular, so what do I know?<br>

But I'm disturb that this kind of gimmicky photography is the trend we are going these days and maybe one day I might be forced to use this kind of action not by choice but by demand.<br>

If you google "yellow sky action wedding photographer" you'll see what I'm talking about.</p>

<p>It looks to me like it is a whole set of actions, but if I am assuming right...he he he - you know what assuming does...I think you are referring to something like the photo at the end of my post. I agree wholeheartedly with you. There is a time and place for it and that doesn't mean every photo, but to each his own ;)</p><div></div>

<p>A dozen other collections of actions create the same or similar effects, and yes, they're the trend of this decade. I agree that people will associate them with an era. I don't think you'll ever be "forced" to use such effects, and I think their influence on the market is already starting to wane because they are so prolific. They no longer set a photographer's work apart; if anything, they make different photographers' works difficult to distinguish.</p>

<p>Hi Melissa and Ian,<br>

It's something like this: <strong>http://tinyurl.com/5uppx45.</strong><br>

BTW, great websites you guys have, I am envious.</p>

<p> </p>

 

<p>Really, is this what you want the forum to become... an irrelevant place for bored photographers with nothing better to do with their time, during high season, to whine, complain, and chuckle at others who are more successful than they or may shoot in a different style?</p>

 

<p >Somehow, I just knew a reponse as your will appear sooner or later.</p>

<p >I posted this thread because this photog appears to be fairly successful and what he's doing in PP seems to take a lot less effort than what I'm doing now. And people seemed to like it a lot.</p>

<p >His style is different from mine and I can't say I like it but maybe his style makes a lot of commercial sense. Your exposure can be off a bit but you can make the facial and body exposure right without worrying about blowing out the background or details.</p>

<p > </p>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5699093">senor crocodrillo</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"></a>, Jun 15, 2011; 07:29 p.m.</p>

 

<p>Really, is this what you want the forum to become... an irrelevant place for bored photographers with nothing better to do with their time, during high season, to whine, complain, and chuckle at others who are more successful than they or may shoot in a different style?</p>

 

<p>To be fair, Green, you asked for opinions, although senor makes some assumptions in his response.</p>

<p>I personally don't like trendy actions, and don't naturally use them in my work. However, I will do it if my client asks me to do it. Whether or not you comply with client's requests along these lines is up to you. Some photographers, for instance, would die if they had to do a spot color image on their client's request. It isn't right or wrong--just a choice you make for yourself.</p>

<p>I would not, for instance, adopt yellow sky actions on my own, just because I think I'll lose market share or be 'uncool'. You do have free will, you know. You also have the power to attract and satisfy clients with the type of work <strong>you</strong> want to do.</p>

<p>Wow, um, yeah, I agree with Senor. It's no better than the fuzzy 80's glow or the selective color everything. Some people love it, some people hate it. I get requests for this type of coloring a lot - more of a vintage effect. A lot of it is getting it right in camera and utilizing the sun to your advantage. In other words, these images can take a lot of time and effort - not just slamming an action on it.</p>

<p>Meh.</p>

<p>Thank you Green :)</p>

<p>The style is an emulation of faded photographs from the 70's with flare. When the style is used in fashion and lifestyle ads they usually get much closer to the real thing than what this action set does. But there has to be better actions out there if this is the style you're after. Everybody can't like the same thing or the world would be a strange place.</p>

 

<p>While I have purchased more than my share of plugins, I've never been a fan of actions because they almost always require tweaking after they are applied, but successful tweaking almost always requires a level of familiarity with Photoshop that would have almost certainly allowed you to do the effect yourself in the 1st place, without using anyone else's action.</p>

<p>Successfully selling yellow highlight effects is particularly puzzling to me because, of all effects, these are so incredibly easy to achieve if you own a copy of PS and have an image where the sun direction doesn't conflict with this effect. In other words, you need to start with a backlit shot, even one that doesn't show any lens flare. Then, all you have to do is run Photoshop's lens flare filter (...I usually prefer the "105 Prime" version...) and stack a "Levels" adjustment layer on top with the settings shown in the attached screen grab. Depending on the starting image, a final tweak with levels or curves might be called for to make the overall contrast and brightness what you are looking for. </p>

<p>It probably takes less than 30 seconds to process an image this way, totally manually. If, for some unknown reason, you intend to process a lot of images this way, just make up your own action.</p>

<div></div>

<p>The next two posts show the result of this approach on an image graciously supplied by Bob Colameco. Here's his original:</p><div></div>

<p>... and finally, the result of applying the simple procedure described in my 1st post to Bob's image. Obviously, by playing with the various adjustments, you can move the position of the flare, make the flare more or less intense, more or less localized, and make the overall yellow highlight effect more or less prominent.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>PS - Thanks, Bob!</p><div></div>

<p>PPS - For the sake of full disclosure, I just remembered that I also dropped the global contrast a bit and slightly sharpened Bob's image b4 posting my tweaked version.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>Thanks, Tom. I've tried it out last night and your method does work.</p>

<p>I made another example of the faded yellow looking look.</p>

<p>The original image is shot by Vincent van der Pas under the creative commons license and can be found <a href="

<p>It would be easy as pie to throw step 1-3 into an action:<br /> 1) A <strong>desaturation</strong> layer -10 because fades images have less saturation.<br /> 2) Some <strong>veiling flare</strong> by painting white on a layer and using blur to make it into a blur. Flare because old lenses flare more easily.<br /> 3) A curve layer to do three things - decrease the contrast, decrease the amount of blue (yellow cast), slight decrease of the amount of green (a light magenta cast). This is the actually <strong>fading of the colors and contrast</strong> that happened over a few decades - apply to taste.</p>

<p>Then for good measure:<br /> 4) Add some <strong>grain</strong> because these types of images were originally shot on film.<br /> 5) Add some <strong>sharpening but keep it low</strong> because older images didn't have the oversharpened look of digital.<br /> I also did some <strong>glow on the highlights</strong> to give it a slightly dreaming look. That's easy to do as well and can be converted into an action in 2 minutes.</p>

<p><em>What to do and how much is of course a matter of taste. Some like their images a little more magenta, others more yellow while some might prefer to just have a slight taste of the fading. Some like more sharpening while other like a softer look. If you want to have it exactly the way you like it it might be worth the effort to roll your own action.</em></p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Green Photog - I'm glad my little technique worked for you. As you can see from Pete S's post, in addition to my bare bones approach, there are many, many other ways to easily vary the look. One of the easiest is to change from the yellow-green look I illustrated to a creamy pink look such as seen in Melissa's post. </p>

<p>I would much rather be able to tweak my look by moving sliders based on logic, rather than having to remember a zillion cutesy names for slightly different actions. In addition, different base photographs will yield different results upon application of the same action, and if you want consistency in your final product, it is almost essential to be able to continuously and smoothly vary the parameters, not just try another action.</p>

<p>HTH,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>Thanks again, Tom and Pete. This brings out another question in that should you set consist of vastly different looks. Right now my sets are all in B&W and color. I've thrown in some faded color, dramatic sky kind of LR presets on some and later on I found those to be cheesy as they stood out like a sore thumb. <br>

It's not like they are bad pictures, but if you throw in a faded yellow, a faded pink together with the rest in true colors, the faded ones will look like they have been "photoshoped".</p>

<p>Hi GreenP - Good question, as was the one you asked earlier about whether such effects would seem dated in a couple of years. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, I'm probably the absolutely worst photographer in the world to ask about such effects. I've got many, many images currently in print in hi-gloss publications and brochures put out by my employer, but it's all non-romantic, sharp, realistic-color work. About half the images are people at work (hopefully looking happy and engaged), and the other half are shots of the things that they are making / have made, workplace interactions with each other, etc., so such efx would be highly out of place. </p>

<p>This perspective has probably rubbed off on my non-work photography because knowing how easy it is to achieve many of these effects, I see them as silly and guaranteed to look dated and fad-like in a collection (ie, a wedding album) whose viewing lifetime may be measured in decades. Mixing multiple "styles" (ie, your 2nd questions) would be even worse (IMHO), the visual equivalent of a ransom note made out of newspaper clippings. ;-)</p>

<p>That being said, I know quite a few non-photographer women (but not one non-photographer guy) who love such "looks" or "styles" (as they call it). So, if I had clients who wanted one of these looks, I would be more than happy to oblige, but it wouldn't be "me".</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>PS - It turns out that the only reason I had an example of this sort of processing is that one of my students asked about it.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I think a collection of images needs visual continuity. So even when using different processing the end result needs to be visually coherent.</p>

<p>In feature films they have a process called color grading where they apply color correction and color enhancements for each scene. Sometimes to make scenes look the same even when shot in different light and sometimes to convey a certain mood or stylized look. Usually this color grading is quite heavy but you don't notice it when watching a film because it's made with a purpose and they don't switch haphazardly between totally different looks unless it's for a reason, for instance a totally different location.</p>

<p>If we think of a wedding album as visual storytelling it makes sense to approach it the same way. If you just throw together images with totally different processing for no apparent reason it will look like a collection of non-related images.</p>

<p>A wedding album will always look dated because it was shot during a specific period in time. But that doesn't mean it has to look cheesy even when viewed several decades later.</p>