Any ideas on how he did this?

jd1585

Hey everyone,

I am relatively new to the forum and smugmug but I love it thus far. I was wandering if anyone had ideas on how the following photo was taken? If it pulls the whole gallery I am referring to the three little girls. I know photoshop was involved but I was wandering if these may be special plug ins or something right out of the box.



http://GregMitchellImaging.smugmug.com/gallery/688445_unCii/1/29886851_8e9bf


Thanks for the help.

Jason
www.mmpphoto.com
jd1585.smugmug.com

Blackwood

I don't see anything that screams 'photoshop' excepting the (likely) digital de-saturation and color treatment.

Nice soft lighting, but could as easily be a lens filter as a photoshop job.

What are you referring to specifically?

pathfinder

Sepia tone and a little Gaussian blur, methinks.

jd1585

Blackwood wrote:

I don't see anything that screams 'photoshop' excepting the (likely) digital de-saturation and color treatment.

Nice soft lighting, but could as easily be a lens filter as a photoshop job.

What are you referring to specifically?

There were two areas I was looking at,

1. The depth of field seems odd, but in a good way. From left to right there seems to be soft focus across the bottom areas of their dresses. However thinking of the way I would take this shot, I am not sure if I could get the manipulation of DOF. The blur across the bottom is almost U shaped.

2. The glow of the highlights seems a little enhanced and also diffused, the sephia color I can understand.

I may be way off, thats why I was checking for public opinion. Either way I love the effect.

Thanks for the help.

pathfinder

The image looks sharper in the center than near the edges, also.

This could be done with a lens, like the Canon Soft focus 135, or a Gaussian blur overlay can be applied to a selection to create the vignette effect that this image displays also.

Scott_Quier

If it was done in PS, one way to do this is:

• Process to B&W
• Apply sepia treatment to taste
• Flatten the image (if you like)
• Select background layer
• Select the lasso tool and set the feathering to some large number (in the range of 150 to 250)
• Draw a circle around the girls - don't have to be too precise. Should take you, literally, a few seconds at most.
• Invert your selection (CTRL-Shift-I)
• Copy and paste your selection (CTRL-C, CTRL-V)
• Select the new layer
• Apply blur (Gausian?) to the new layer to whatever extent you like. I tend to make it too heavy and the dial it back later (see below).
• Set the opacity of the blurred layer to taste.
• Flatten the image if you like

I may have missed a step or two in there somewhere, but that is one way to get the job done.

Slinky0390

The color treatment looks like something Adobe Lightroom's Antique Photo preset would do.

Icebear

Scott's procedure would work beautifully, but a layer mask might just be a bit easier, varying the opacity of the blur layer, etc. I'm no layer mask expert, but I'm learning there's a lot of power in them thangs.

OneEyedJack

to add to scotts workflow, i would also feather the selection about 50px or so (play around and see what you like)

or add a layer mask with gassain blur and erase it out using a black brush and the opacity slider to blend

kazuri images

It looks to me like a combination of Kubota actions: "hollywood glow" and "bronzed god" (or tea-staining) and then some "velveteen" or "deep forest" perhaps for the added blur. With several of these actions you have the ability to return sharpness to any area of the photo you choose and well as balance amount of blur. Because I use them often, that's what I see in many of the photos in this gallery, not just the girls. You get the complete action with the push of a button - i love kubota, feels like cheating

darci
www.kazuriimages.com

geospatial_junkie

Methinks he pulled off some Masked Overlay diffusion (regular overlay diffusion would blow out the girl's dresses and this is a HUGE problem with many wedding photos I've seen). I would agree about the sepia tones with the previous poster:D However, he probably used a custom colour.