My try at a Joel Grimes look....

Gary752

I recently watched a workshop on Creative Live with Joel Grimes as the instructor and he taught how he gets his look and why he started doing it. Turns out his style came about because he is color blind and this eliminated problems with color correction for him. Basically he lowers contrast and highlights and raises shadows and clarity and desaturates it a bit in CR. I decided to give it a try in LR 5.6 and this was my results. What do you think? Did I come close? C&C welcomed.




Thanks for looking!
GaryB

jonh68

For my tastes I like the effect but you have to be aware of the backgrounds. The small leaves in the trees overwhelm the picture as the process brings out more detail in them. You need to have smoother backgrounds so when you bump up clarity the subjects are the focus. You want your subjects to pop, not get swallowed into the background.

Bryce Wilson

Gary, I think the "Grimes" look is achieved by more than just the post processing but also relies on his lighting, the amount he uses and the placement of said lights to a fair degree.

I could be wrong, but I don't recall seeing much "Grimes" work shot out of door.

That said, I think for a first shot at it, you are getting the post processing part down pretty well.

jonh68

Bryce Wilson wrote: »

Gary, I think the "Grimes" look is achieved by more than just the post processing but also relies on his lighting, the amount he uses and the placement of said lights to a fair degree.

I could be wrong, but I don't recall seeing much "Grimes" work shot out of door.

That said, I think for a first shot at it, you are getting the post processing part down pretty well.

Yep, you have to underexpose the backgrounds, make the subject pop with lighting, and you have to choose your backgrounds as well. It is more than just processing or applying the process to a picture. You have to plan it out with the process in mind.

r3t1awr3yd

I think the interpretation of Joel Grimes' work is interesting enough to warrant another thread

The picture above reminds me more of HDR than the typical killer lighting on a composited background that I'm used to seeing with Joel Grimes. Just my .02

-Wally

Gary752

Thanks everyone for your replies! Yes, this is not the full Joel Grimes look. He gets his look with CR and PS and spends a lot more time than I did with the above photo. I wanted to see how close I could come to his look in LR alone. As for his lighting, he uses 3 lights. He uses 2 gridded strip boxes, one on each side for edge light, and either a beauty dish or an octobox in front, just above eye level angled down. Depending on the look he's going for, he may use a reflector below the center light, if he needs to get some catch light in the eyes. And yes, his photos are composites, but the backgrounds are photos he took and basically processed the same as his subjects, fake HDR'ish. In his workshop, he stated that he changes his style (brand) every 7 years, and has about 2 years left before he changes again.

GaryB