Deconstructing a process

monkeydane

I recently ran into this artist via another forum and am amazed at his animal portraits. I say portraits because the technique he's used seems to make you much more connected to the subject than a normal zoo or safari pic.

His gallery is here:
http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=788471

I've been trying to adapt some of his technique to bring people into a few of my shots as well but I'm having a hard time figuring out how he got that look.
Most definitly he's making a great capture, but it can't all be lighting at the time of the shot, anyone have any ideas on some steps to start me down the path?

I'm wondering if it's some Draganizer type of filter, or maybe even lucis art on some, I've tried duplicating layers with multiply, playing with Draganizer, anyone seen something like this before?

jdryan3

Great site. His 'mi padre' is a fantastic portrait. I don't know what plug-in he is using, if any. Most seem to be very saturated in parts, lots of vignetting & blurring around the edges, maybe even using HDR. If he is not using a plug-in, I bet he has his own layers set and actions to get the consistent feel (kinda of obvious statement).

Whatever he does, I like them very much. His contact info is in his profile, so you could just ask.

OsirisPhoto

Looks very much like the PP utilised in [SIZE=-1]Vincent Versace's "Welcome to Oz"

I have skimmed through the book... won't tackle it seriously until I've gone through Professional Photoshop and understood it
[/SIZE]

idleberry

I tried a similar technique to this, earlier today. This is a brief description of how I did it. It's about painting with light.

Start with an image. Obviously.
Go to layer> new layer> adjustment layer> curves.
Set the highlight part of the curve (the top right end) to an output of around 105
Make a mask in this layer
Using the paintbrush, select black as the colour, and then reduce the opacity/flow/hardness of the brush. Keep it low, so you can control it.
Paint the bits you want to highlight. Keep it light though, and build up gradually.

I hope that helps you work out what you want.

manda

Thanks for the tip idleberry.

I had a quick go and it might just work!

His photos are amazing thanks for sharing the link monkeydane - very inspiring.

monkeydane

manda wrote:

Thanks for the tip idleberry.

I had a quick go and it might just work!

His photos are amazing thanks for sharing the link monkeydane - very inspiring.

After playing with Draganizer, then following some other techniques to try and get it close to what I want, a simple curves adjustment and layer mask gets a similar effect.

Just goes to show, many different roads all lead to the same place.

Thanks for the post that does help alot.

PamR

I recently did a similar effect on another forum (could it be the same forum you saw it on?):

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=26453350

Some notes on the technique:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=26454188

monkeydane

PamR wrote:

I recently did a similar effect on another forum (could it be the same forum you saw it on?):

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=26453350

Some notes on the technique:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=26454188

Yep, this was much easier, but I did find all sorts of great ideas on how to tweak what 've got into what I want. one of the results before final, final tweaking.
http://monkeydane.smugmug.com/photos/249575407_HTifX-L-1.jpg

PamR

Looks good, Monkey!

cbcortez

monkeydane wrote:

Yep, this was much easier, but I did find all sorts of great ideas on how to tweak what 've got into what I want. one of the results before final, final tweaking.
http://monkeydane.smugmug.com/photos/249575407_HTifX-L-1.jpg

Nice one there monkey and I see Pam is also here, hey Pam, i put up your lioness shot (as a link, i dont want to get into trouble lol) and see if people can help me deconstruct it.

What i cant make out is how do you increase saturation so much, in your lioness pic the color is just in the right places and they apprear golden and not yellow which results if you try to bump up your saturation in a myriad of ways...tried lab, mixer, sat...

can you help us out and let the mystery unfold? how did you pp that lioness shot apart from the dodging and burning. hehehe.

PamR

cbcortez wrote:

What i cant make out is how do you increase saturation so much, in your lioness pic the color is just in the right places and they apprear golden and not yellow which results if you try to bump up your saturation in a myriad of ways...tried lab, mixer, sat...

Hi CB,

Most of the color of the lioness is from some custom curves I've created along with a bit of hue/sat.

cbcortez

PamR wrote:

Hi CB,

Most of the color of the lioness is from some custom curves I've created along with a bit of hue/sat.

oh thanks so much Pam. Would you receive it as bad taste if i ask you to walk me through it? I obviously wouldnt wanna impose but i am overly fixated on how you did it...im telling you i never really liked going into PS but ever since i saw your lion, ive been spending like 3 hours a night trying to get the darn thing correct and i havent progressed a bit hahahaha.

you just made me wanna hunk down and learn PS but im really more of a show me then ill follow and then try to experiment type of a learner.

thanks so much for replying Pam.

monkeydane

Not sure exactl how Pam worked her image but I did do similar steps to what she did, minus the hue/saturation change.

One technique that works for me sometimes is something I learned from a photographer named Lazlo. He's got it to the point where people are calling it an effect
http://www.kentdesign1.com/nuke_new/html/toning_tutorial.php

You might try the steps outlined here, with some good dodge and burn and a hue/sat "wash" layer to give you wat you're looking for.

It's not for veryimage, but it works wonders on the right ones.

OffTopic

cbcortez, here's a tutorial you might want to play around with. It's the 10-step Dragan tutorial, shown layer-by-layer in a PS file (it is a very large zip file). It really helps you to see exactly what it is going on at each step, then you can learn how to modify the various techniques for your own images. It's at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=12933331
I don't think you'll want to follow this method exactly, but you'll learn a lot of useful techniques.

PamR, love that lioness! Although I have always admired this style of processing, I've never been able to achieve satisfactory results myself - mine always end up looking overdone. Yours is beautiful.

cbcortez

Thanks

OffTopic wrote:

cbcortez, here's a tutorial you might want to play around with. It's the 10-step Dragan tutorial, shown layer-by-layer in a PS file (it is a very large zip file). It really helps you to see exactly what it is going on at each step, then you can learn how to modify the various techniques for your own images. It's at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=12933331
I don't think you'll want to follow this method exactly, but you'll learn a lot of useful techniques.

PamR, love that lioness! Although I have always admired this style of processing, I've never been able to achieve satisfactory results myself - mine always end up looking overdone. Yours is beautiful.

Thanks Lori and MOnkey....ill give those a whirl!