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KeriVit · Oct 3, 2007, 05:29 PM

I've got several colorful photos that I want to achieve this look on.

I can handle the black bkgd easy enough. Notice the muted tones and skin tone. The contrast on the rifle is nice. Can I achieve this with hue/Saturation, Levels? How do I tone down a picture to get this more dramatic feel? Or is it inherent in the original? It just looks like there is an overall adjustment.

Veltliner · Oct 4, 2007, 01:30 AM

I'm just starting out with CS3, but usually you do white balance, black levels, then vibrance (midtone saturation) and saturation and the four sliders of exposure in Lightroom or Aperture, and then move over to Photoshop (some people do exposure curve in Photoshop... endless variations...)

The real thing is the local color adjustment (curves).

Masking, layers... there's so much...

There is one great book about CS3 (if you have CS2, you can buy the CS2 version of this book by the same author).

Amazon.com: Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC: Books: Martin Evening

If you want to use Photoshop, you need at least one great book to start out. (What I have heard, seasoned Photoshop users have a small library of books about this software).

bluedog · Oct 4, 2007, 05:43 PM

Check out iTunes for podcasts on the subject. Do a search for Photoshop, then choose to limit to podcasts.

Veltliner · Oct 5, 2007, 02:48 AM

There are message boards focusing completely on Photoshop.

Go to adobe.com and then go to the forums. Every Adobe app has its own forum.

Google Photoshop and forum.

KeriVit · Oct 5, 2007, 03:32 PM

It's just hard finding what I want to do specifically. Thanks.

Thorzdad · Oct 6, 2007, 10:33 AM

One thing to consider, too, is that a lot of what you see in the photo could easily be the actual photo/environment itself. Pics like that are taken by professionals with professional rigs and lenses and metering. Yeah, there's most likely some post touching-up involved, but I'd wager that the original photo wasn't too far off from what you see in the pic.

keekeeree · Oct 7, 2007, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by Thorzdad

One thing to consider, too, is that a lot of what you see in the photo could easily be the actual photo/environment itself. Pics like that are taken by professionals with professional rigs and lenses and metering. Yeah, there's most likely some post touching-up involved, but I'd wager that the original photo wasn't too far off from what you see in the pic.

I disagree. I'd say 75% of the "feel" of the photo is post-camera. I opened it up in Photoshop and the histogram shows absolutely no information in the light areas.

Dark and moody images that look underexposed seem to be the trendy thing these days.

Back in the day of darkrooms, chemicals and manipulating light projected on a sheet of paper, this was called The Hand of God technique.

I suppose today we could call it The Mouse of God technique?

sarahmacbook7 · Oct 7, 2007, 09:45 PM

How do I set up my Firefox to view the image? It's a .tiff and I can see it when using Safari.

Veltliner · Oct 8, 2007, 01:11 AM

Originally Posted by keekeeree

I disagree. I'd say 75% of the "feel" of the photo is post-camera. I opened it up in Photoshop and the histogram shows absolutely no information in the light areas.

Dark and moody images that look underexposed seem to be the trendy thing these days.

Back in the day of darkrooms, chemicals and manipulating light projected on a sheet of paper, this was called The Hand of God technique.

I suppose today we could call it The Mouse of God technique?

Digital photographs are shot in RAW if the photographers has high demands on his work.

A RAW image is what it says: RAW. Most RAW images look not very good when they come out of the camera. It is practically a black and white-image with color data adjoined. Black levels are low.

What makes it great is the three openings of headroom to adjust the image. And that it is the digital equivalent of a negative. From this "negative" - which is never changed, only adjusted in non-pixel editing (which would be Photoshop) - you are free to roam in many directions: high key, low key, color moods, contrast, selective color changes (local color)... etc.

Yes, the adjustments are made post camera, but you have to know what you want when you are shooting.

Veltliner · Oct 8, 2007, 01:13 AM

Just wanted to add for the OP: Photoshop is such a big program, and its language is weird, due to a long history (unsharp masking for sharpening is only one of countless examples)...

...that you need a good introduction to really profit from Photoshop forums.

Because how can you know what you want, if you don't know what's available in adjustment opportunities?

keekeeree · Oct 8, 2007, 09:28 PM

Originally Posted by Veltliner

Digital photographs are shot in RAW if the photographers has high demands on his work.

A RAW image is what it says: RAW. Most RAW images look not very good when they come out of the camera. It is practically a black and white-image with color data adjoined. Black levels are low.

What makes it great is the three openings of headroom to adjust the image. And that it is the digital equivalent of a negative. From this "negative" - which is never changed, only adjusted in non-pixel editing (which would be Photoshop) - you are free to roam in many directions: high key, low key, color moods, contrast, selective color changes (local color)... etc.

Yes, the adjustments are made post camera, but you have to know what you want when you are shooting.

While you make a few good points, not sure what any of it has to do with my post and why you quoted my post. Well, other than your last sentence and that's sort of like saying you need light to take a photograph...obvious.

I do agree with you, check out Photoshop specific forums and google Photoshop tutorials. There are tons of them and provide a good foundation to build on your Photoshop knowledge and experience.

Veltliner · Oct 8, 2007, 11:59 PM

Keekeeree, I was using your post to compile what you said, and added things.

It was more a correcting reply to this post.

Originally Posted by Thorzdad

One thing to consider, too, is that a lot of what you see in the photo could easily be the actual photo/environment itself. Pics like that are taken by professionals with professional rigs and lenses and metering. Yeah, there's most likely some post touching-up involved, but I'd wager that the original photo wasn't too far off from what you see in the pic.

I know it was a bit misleading. Should have quoted the above post, not yours.

To the OP:

It is actually quite helpful to study more than one Photoshop book. Most techniques you can do in more than one way, and no book can give you complete overview.

KeriVit · Oct 9, 2007, 05:16 PM

Thanks all. I have been using Photoshop for 10 years. However, I had actually seen a friend do the above look a few days prior to some digital pics he took. I was just wondering if anyone else knew the trick he used. As it turns out, sent me an action that only required minor tweeking after that. He calls it his BlueHue action. But it is a combo of adjusting the hue/saturation on different channels (vs the Master setting), THEN, it adjust the midtone levels.

I'm not saying you throw a photo in and pow! get a picture like above. But I used the action, tweeked, then went in to make the black mask in a wispy way to give it that "creepy" look.

Just thought I'd give you an update. Continue on with your conversation. All info is helpful. I have also joined a PS forum for some more info on texture / displacement mapping.... WOOOOoooo....