littlemike Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 At radio station KUSC's home page (http://www.kusc.org/new/index.php) they run a little four-five image slide show in the center panel. One of the images is of a man wearing headphones, conducting an imaginary orchestra (sorry, have to wait for the image to rotate up). I'd like to emulate that look. The lighting looks like nothing more than a point and shoot on-camera flash. But there seems to have been quite a bit of post processing. Anyone know how to get that look? Maybe an article with step-by-step? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steel120 Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Mike: Perhaps you could tell us what post processing software that you have available, someone may be able to make suggestions as to how the image was processed. It looks like a mask was applied to get rid of background, then a filter process?? Contrast,Brightness and opacity. Many possible combo's within Photoshop. I.E. Photoshop xx-x, Lightroom, ect. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlemike Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 Oh yeah -- good idea. I have CS2 and Lightroom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellis_vener_photography Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 it's a ringlight not just an on camera flash and it looks like the guy doing the image processing really cranked up the contrast and maybe used some sort of porcessign that mimics film cross processing. Check out some of the free Lightroom processing templates that some people have created . You can find links to hose templates at http://www.lightroom-news.com<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlemike Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 Aw heck -- a ringlight? The lighting looked to be a teeny bit off-center so I was hoping it wasn't a ringlight. It's a popular look right now, and I can't afford one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 mike, Take any portrait preferably evenly lit with diffused lighting like at a window. Color balance to neutral or as preferred. Copy the background twice to make two duplicate layers. Apply High Pass filter set to 250 to the first bottom layer and set blend mode to Saturation or Soft Light. Play around with other blend modes. The top layer set to Soft Light blend mode. You can get some very interesting effects playing with different combinations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellis_vener_photography Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 An ABR800 ringlight from http://www.alienbees.com is less than $400.00 it's what I used for that portrait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlemike Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 $400 ain't bad, but the job I'm doing is for a charity which my wife volunteers for and I'm donating my work and, frankly, I just can't justify $400 for an occasional lighting accessory. It would be swell to have a ringlight, though. Tim, I'll try your suggestions this evening -- sounds like fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pam_r Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Also adding a bit of contrast helps. If I may, Ellis, here's your shot with a little extra PP. Something like this is close, I think:<p> <a href="http://upload.pbase.com/image/92582072.jpg">Ellis' shot with a little extra PP</a><p> Pam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlemike Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 Hi Pam, looks darn close to my target image! Is that pretty much Ellis' ringlight image PP'd per Tim's suggestions w/ more contrast, or did you take a different route? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pam_r Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Hi Mike,<br> I used a different technique, pushed it to the extreme for effect, and added more x-processing.<p> But Tim's technique works well and will give you a more refined result. Just dial down the high-pass radius depending on the size of the image (here I used 7 px for Ellis' example), and watch the shadows or they'll become black holes ;-) I didn't use any masking here so you can see the straight-up result.<p> <a href="http://upload.pbase.com/pam_r/image/92587201.jpg">Tim's technique on Ellis' example</a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 The less contrasty your image starts out, the more headroom when applying the High Pass filter and Soft Light or Overlay blending modes. Turning the blend mode on the High Pass layer to Saturation gives some interesting results as well. I just stumbled on this playing around with all the blend modes for each layer. That's what makes this fun-the process of discovering new things on your own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 And an afterthought, try Luminosity blending mode on the High Pass layer. To control contrast and color mapping you could also create a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer just above the Background layer to better control the affects of the other top layers. Try out other blending modes as well such as Luminosity which will reduce color halos on harsh tonal transitions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlemike Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 So what I'm finding is that while the ringlight lighting certainly contributes to the overall "look" of the image I initially pointed to, these layer techniques can bring an image well within the ballpark of what I had in mind. I'll see if I can manage to post my before/after here (need to read the posting rules).<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlemike Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 ...and my after... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlemike Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 wait -- let me try that "after" again -- no, wait, it's only 500 px wide and less than 100kb, like "before," so I don't know why it isn't displaying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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