The "300" effect

Simple question, but possibly a complicated answer. I'm curious if anyone's

found a way to effectively emulate the look they used in the film "300" using

Photoshop. I did a web search on it and except for one reasonably decent

article, most people seem to have tried and failed to successfully imitate the

high-contrast, bronzed look of the film.

 

Any ideas? I'm thinking sepia tone + original (non sepia) layer on top blended

using Multiply. (haven't gotten a chance to attempt it yet, but will post

results if successful)

 

Thanks!

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3979

 

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/tprojects/7807.html

 

http://www.vfxplugins.com/news/5304

 

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/mil/features/video_step_step/

 

Did you read these articles? The last says:

 

"The final touch was dramatic color grading. 'The lighting was very diffuse, which made the helmets and shields look plastic,' Millar says. 'We did selective grading to make them look like metal. For the Spartans' capes, we keyed the red out separately, did our overall grade, and then keyed the reds back in so that color wasn't lost. We generally set our grade with a lot of dynamic range, so they'd have something to play with in the DI.'"

 

It's also covered in the latest issue of Cinefex: http://www.cinefex.com/index/109-01.html

 

More than you wanted to know :)

<a href="http://www.paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/greenberg/index0.htm">something like this</a>?

Hmm... well, although that was a lot of interesting information, none of it actually gave me much information regarding how to reproduce that look in Photoshop, with still images. The obvious "high contrast" phrase is thrown around, but anyone who knows the term "contrast" could have told you that. :)

I think it goes something like this: start with a low contrast image taken under diffuse lighting, increase the contrast in post, then tint to suit taste.

I made a 90-second modest attempt based and adapted on Emre's suggestion:<div></div>

Is she a spartan? :>)

I did some more research. Apparently they dubbed the coloring process "The Crush". Searching for that yielded this gem: http://www.photocritic.org/2007/300-style-photography/

Closer to half Greek and half Irish. Self, now 300'ed:<div></div>

Well after finding out the basic idea of how to recreat it, i took this picture (which is

copyrighted by my company i work for so sorry for copyright allover it) and was able to

achive the effect.

The latest issue of NAPP's Photoshop magazine has a tutorial

that is quite simple and looks very close to this effect. It involves

Overlay and Soft Light Blend modes combined with a high pass

filter. Very striking and close the "Draganized" look.

 

I always thought "300" looked more like Frank Frazetta paintings

from the '70's. Emre's post mentions them keying out the red

capes to get that glowing, deep and rich reds which very much

resembles Frazetta's technique.

http://inside-lightroom.com/

 

this site has a bunch of pre-made lightroom presets, including a 300 one. i have been using

it for a while now, then when i finally saw the movie i was impressed at how close it looks.

 

here is a good example of mine that made good use of it. sorry too that it is a lightroom

preset and not PS. i am not sure if you could load it into PS or not.