Bronze look?

I have seen quite a few photographers with certain type of bronzy-saturated look to their photographs.

Along with creative vignetting I think that style is amazing. Examples are the work of Brit Ragland, Jose A

Gallero and Vittorio Pellazza. Without stepping on any creative toes I would love to learn how to achieve

this look. I imagine taking the picture a certain way helps but what can I do in Photoshop to get this? I

have looked on line for tutorials but found very little and what I did try did not satisfy me.

Can you share any links?

 

I am guessing it is a combination of mixed light (warm gel for key), make-up, and retouching.

I looked at Mr. Pellazza's photos here on photo.net to see what you meant. Although asking

him directly would probably get you there fastest, here is one, short answer: You can stack a

monochrome version of the same photo (a sepia tone layer) over the original color shot

(background layer) and then back off the opacity of the overlapping sepia layer to blend it

with the original. You can also paint out some parts of that masked out, overlapping layer

so more of the color version "shows through" in some areas. Use another overlapping layer

for the heavy burns (vignetting) and blend it in the same way.

Out of curiosity, I decided to follow Keith's suggestion for the bronze look. I used Gimp. And it works a treat it would seem. I took this photograph a while ago.....<div></div>

and by layering a sepia toned monochrome version over it, and reducing opacity to allow the colour version to show through, I ended up with this....<div></div>

it took all of 2 minutes to figure it out and do it.

Pete,

I gave it a try..thanks for the tip...I learn at least 2 new things per day on this website..Bravo!<div></div>

and the after shoy

Thank you all for your help. Especially you Pete. I did some experimenting and got some

great results. I did find exactly the style I was try to describe by doing more research. What I

was talking about is HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image). I'm now trying to learn as much as I

can on that subject. Are you familiar with it?