I got really into this look a little while ago. Wish I'd done more with it as it seems like everyone's using it at the moment.
Here's the saturation map and colour map.
Those black outlines on the saturation map are really unusual - makes it look like a cartoon. They're areas where there's no colour at all. So there must be some process controlling the saturation which I've not sussed yet.
You can see the orange/teal complimentary colours on the colour map - really simple colour information.
There are different two approaches I use. One is handpainting with a colour brush (there's a little more to that one, but it takes some explaining), and the other is technicolor.
2-strip technicolor can purify colours in a similar way. Simplest way to do it is Channel Mixer; go to the Blue channel: turn Blue down to 0% and Green up to 100%. Then adjust all channels to get the right skin tones and dial in warmth and things - or use hue/saturation layers or colour balance to control the colours. You've basically got rid of a whole colour channel and you're constructing the full-colour image from just Red and Green information.
EDIT: actually for this colour scheme you can try Channel Mixer ->
Red: R100% G0 B0 ;
Green: R50% G0 B50% ;
Blue: R0 G0 B100%
What are these maps? A friend of mine was telling me about them the other day -- How do I do that I have an image up and trying to do it I was trying to do sepiaesque toning.
Oh yeah that's how (Selective Color) Really useful for working out techniques like this. And a colour map I just make with a Solid Color layer filled with 50% grey, and the image on top set to Color blending.
Clint earhart wrote: But how did they do this image? I set the selective one to soft light but the toning... Im lost.
Oh you just use the saturation and colour maps to examine the image. I'm thinking the black outlines are probably a JPEG artefact now - just hadn't seen it look quite like that before.
That modified 2-strip technicolor process is probably the answer. Channel mixer -> Green Channel: R 50% G 0% B 50%
Then just fine tune the values. I've just done it to a random picture of Jenny McCarthy and got pretty much the same effect of the skin colour matching the clothing and the pure blue in the sky.
Yeah, saturation maps and colour maps are useful for when you want to see if you're getting a technique *right*, or to examine how the colours work in an image.
Learning how to read them gives you clues. Otherwise you might not know whether to create an effect by hand colouring, using curves, colour balancing, or knocking a colour channel out and reconstructing the image some other way. e.g. If the saturation map was very flat on the model's skin, you could guess the image had been colorised by hand (which is another common retro colour technique). The colour map only really shows orange and teal, which suggests the colour palette's been simplified. They're also very pure tones, which is characteristic of technicolor.
SoCo n Lime
Posts: 3,212
Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
capturing subject - under expose with polarize filter,
post - heavy on the addition of blacks in raw processing with plenty of contrast however the direct sunlight is providing bucket loads of contrast and depth anyway.. then adjust color to taste maybe?
Peano
Posts: 3,832
Washington, District of Columbia, US
I took a different approach (a simpler approach that doesn't challenge my simple mind):
First, to get the overall darkened look, I opened a hue/sat adj layer, changed blend mode to multiply, reduced saturation to -100, and reduced layer opacity to 60%.
For color, check the relative RGB levels in the highlights and shadows:
- In the highlights, blue is about 10 levels below R and G.
- In the shadows, green is about 3X the red value, and blue is about 2X the green value.
Various ways you could get approximately those RGB ratios -- curves or color balance, for instance. I used selective color, because it also lets you increase black levels in the blues and cyans to further deepen the sky without mucking up other colors.
For the highlights, go into the whites panel and lower the blue value (you can place sample points on highlight and shadow areas to see what's happening). For shadows, go to the blacks panel and increase green, and increase blue even more.
Here are both adj layers applied to an image with a blue sky and whites. Obviously you could make the blues more of less deep, add more or less blue or green in the shadows, etc. Very easy to do on a selective color adj layer.
Peano wrote: I took a different approach (a simpler approach that doesn't challenge my simple mind):
First, to get the overall darkened look, I opened a hue/sat adj layer, changed blend mode to multiply, reduced saturation to -100, and reduced layer opacity to 60%.
For color, check the relative RGB levels in the highlights and shadows:
- In the highlights, blue is about 10 levels below R and G.
- In the shadows, green is about 3X the red value, and blue is about 2X the green value.
Various ways you could get approximately those RGB ratios -- curves or color balance, for instance. I used selective color, because it also lets you increase black levels in the blues and cyans to further deepen the sky without mucking up other colors.
For the highlights, go into the whites panel and lower the blue value (you can place sample points on highlight and shadow areas to see what's happening). For shadows, go to the blacks panel and increase green, and increase blue even more.
Here are both adj layers applied to an image with a blue sky and whites. Obviously you could make the blues more of less deep, add more or less blue or green in the shadows, etc. Very easy to do on a selective color adj layer.
This looks good, could you explain what you did in lamens terms?
SMASSH STUDIO
Posts: 1,019
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US
Im on the road but you could try a combo like bw filter and change it to an overlay and then mess with the filtet settings like default, lighter to see if u get something similar. With your soft light it will be hard to hit it 100%
Yes he does, I did the -100 Saturation 60% multiply (on another image that I got) and the sky looks good but now the colors... I added curves to yellow and green?
Peano
Posts: 3,832
Washington, District of Columbia, US
Clint earhart wrote: Yes he does, I did the -100 Saturation 60% multiply (on another image that I got) and the sky looks good but now the colors... I added curves to yellow and green?
If you want to use curves:
In the blue channel, pull the highlight end down a little, and pull the shadow end up a little. Just the endpoints, so the "curve" remains a straight line.
In the green channel, pull the shadow end up a little.
In the blue channel, pull the highlight end down a little, and pull the shadow end up a little. Just the endpoints, so the "curve" remains a straight line.
In the green channel, pull the shadow end up a little.
Im beginning from yours PSD Im seeing that you went to the whites and bummed up the yellow, for the whites to be yellow, and you darkend the Blues for the sky.
Peano
Posts: 3,832
Washington, District of Columbia, US
Clint earhart wrote: Im beginning from yours PSD Im seeing that you went to the whites and bummed up the yellow, for the whites to be yellow, and you darkend the Blues for the sky.
Your image doesn't have any blue sky, so you don't want to mimic an image that has loads of blue sky. Your image is filled with warm tones; the Gucci ad is mostly cool tones. Work with what you've got.
Hey, sorry had to pop offline and chat to someone about a flat.
Right, the image is obviously completely different in terms of tone and colours and things (so if you tried to put that sky and that skin in that scene, it would look like a nuclear accident - that's a desert 'golden hour' shot, where the sky and the way it effects light is going to be fundamentally different).
I think the essence of the effect is this:
Strip one of the RGB channels out and reconstruct it from the other two. No desaturation or any local changes, just constructing the green channel from 50%R 50%B. Slight Hue shift and Gradient Map on luminosity. But basically you've simplified the colours, so many things in the scene (you really need a scene with at least two strong colours) have become the same hue. Gives you a technicolor/colourised look. VERY manipulatable, so you can reconstruct that effect to give you whatever sky and skin colours you want just nudging the channels.
Thanks for sharing your TIFF. I really enjoyed seeing your workflow. Would you be able to clarify what you did on the LAB Enhance and the LAB Colorize layers? I assume it had something to do with the LAB color space, but other than that I am not quite sure that happened there. Thanks!
Really useful for working out techniques like this. And a colour map I just make with a Solid Color layer filled with 50% grey, and the image on top set to Color blending.
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