Natalia_Taffarel wrote:
He's got bts videos

Most of his work ARE composites. Follow him on Twitter he posts step by step often

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Michael C Pearson wrote:
I've been a fan of Crisman's work for some time now, and I think I'll be able to describe some of the art theory he uses in creating his very compositionally polished, painterly, somewhat cinematic imagery.

You seem quite intelligent and aware of the "perfection in camera, perfection in post" mentality (you said you would prefer to stop down and use a flash to give the image a darker/moodier atmosphere as opposed to heavily retouching), so I'll spare you the lecture.

Crisman clearly spends lots of time planning and executing his imagery in a way that communicates not only his narrative but the intended emotion clearly. When I study his imagery, there are a few ways he communicates visually that make his work stand out compared to other, less post-heavy photographers. (DISCLAIMER: I COULD BE 100% WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING - THIS IS MY BEST GUESS)

The most obvious aspect of this is his careful use of controlled color theory to manipulate the viewers' emotion. I believe the book with the title of something like "If the color is purple, someone is going to die" was mentioned recently. That book goes into incredible detail on what color combinations affect emotions and how to use them. He uses somewhat muted colors and avoids any intense spots of saturation. He juxtaposes areas of desaturation next to areas of muted saturation which gives the muted colors the illusion of being more vibrant (while keeping the overall image saturation softer). He prefers his midtones and shadows to hold the majority of the saturation which results in those crisp, clean highlights. The range of hues he uses is also limited and controlled in a way that gives the viewer's eye the minimal amount of hues needed for the mood he's going for (generally the less going on in an image, the more visually pleasing it is). Painters also work with a very limited range of hue.

The values (aka tones) in his image are also soft and pleasing on the eye, and again it's because he controls his values in respect to how they fit in the compsotion. He is aware that the eye is drawn to the brightest whites and darkest blacks in the image, so he makes sure there aren't any jarring areas of contrast. All the values flow together, allowing the viewers' eye to glide through his images. Use curves to pull out any distracting black or whites just enough that they don't draw the eye. PROTIP: keep a hint of pure black or white at the focal point, but keep it subtle.

Still on the topic of values, a MAJOR contributing factor to the "painterly" clean look of his images is due to many local curve and color adjustments. Select the subject, curve so that the values look the best for the composition. Select the background, foreground, chairs, walls (each with their own curve adjustment layer) - anything that would improve the final compostion's flow/distribution of values gets adjusted.  reduce the contrast of the selected thing because it's drawing the eye and it shouldn't, or even INCREASE contrast if the thing isn't reading as close enough or a strong enough part of the composition. Maybe one of the chairs is a little lighter than the rest of them so you'd darken it so it doesn't stand out. Maybe there's a natural highlight to shadow gradient from right to left on the background wall which doesn't help to communicate form/depth or improve the composition, so quickmask -> black-to-transparent gradient tool -> turn into mask, remove gradation. I do find myself adding much more gradients than removing them when it comes to non-skin work. Painting subtle gradients on the background can really help the flow of the compostiion and give the image that cinematic look. Crisman's imagery has LOTS of this local contrast fine-tuning, and IMO it's the main contributing factor of his clean, painterly, cinematic look.

Next up, depth! It's is so important to represent properly in a 2D image, especially when you want the "painterly" look. Crisman knows to either shoot in areas where there is obvious haze/atmospheric perspective or he adds it digitally. This ensures that the distance between the foreground/midground/background read clearly. Generally stuff far away is lower contrast and has a mix of the ambient sky color mixed in. This doesn't always show up on film,  reducing the depth of the image and making it visually cluttered. Simply going through the image and reducing an object's contrast dependant on the intended depth can make the image so much more satisfying to view.

Finally which has already been mentioned is that there has been some quality dodge and burn done to make all the forms read clearly and giving some subtle pop to the highlights, but it's hardly the main contributing factor of the Crisman look.


Damn it, I just realized I matched the wrong image - you wanted the pastel/spring one. Oh well, at least you can still see what applying my advice could do to your image, although an extreme example. I know you weren't interested in doing anything this drastic. I intended to just demonstrate some of the described theory but sometimes it's fun to see how closely I can get an image to match another and I get carried away.


(wtf I just realized the model looks like he could be my better-looking brother)

Hopefully what I've explained helped clear things up for ya. Good luck!

Dude, you're my hero. I honestly didn't get 90% of what you're saying, but it does make a little bit of sense
This is what I did with the image in question after playing with it:

It's all just global adjustments plus some adjustments with luminosity masks, but nothing local, and certainly no D&B as I suck pretty badly at it (I know HOW to do it but I don't even know how to approach and what to begin with on an image like this).

Anyways, for those who's interested, I got a hold of the retoucher who works for Crisman (he uses one retoucher to keep the style consistent). She said on average it takes 6-8 hours per image, she charges 75-100$ per hour depending on the usage.

Michael C Pearson wrote:
I've been a fan of Crisman's work for some time now, and I think I'll be able to describe some of the art theory he uses in creating his very compositionally polished, painterly, somewhat cinematic imagery.........

Nice work.  Thank you.

Anyways, for those who's interested, I got a hold of the retoucher who works for Crisman (he uses one retoucher to keep the style consistent). She said on average it takes 6-8 hours per image, she charges 75-100$ per hour depending on the usage.

That's helpful.  I think its always good for everyone to get a sense of the time involved.  6-8 hours of editing, PER image, is so much more than anyone I know would ever spend (and so many on these posts expect a quick YouTube video to show how to get it in 15 minutes).



How did your shoot turn out?  I'd love to keep this thread going.