Carlos Ignacio M wrote:
Either a 20 inch reflector or beauty dish as a key, main light. There should not be a fill light or reflector lighting up the shadows on the opposite side. The model should be at a distance from the backdrop so there is no spill. Flags must be used so the background lighting does not spill on to the model.

I could be wrong but I think the OP doesn't want to know about lighting. Ewww. He wants to know how he can recreate it in Photoshop. I think CS7 will have an Instagram filter which will please so many.

I didn't even know this was "a look." I just thought it was a little heavy toward the blue range.

Charlie-CNP wrote:
I know you want to do this in post, but Ken is spot on with his comment of lighting. Keep things simple and shoot it in camera vs. having to rely on post. You can get this with the right experience lighting your subject, and then set your camera WB to around 4200k and adjust to your desired taste to get the blue tones. It will save you hours of wasted work flow in post trying to create a "look" that can be shot in a quarter of the time from the get go. Good luck

Two points:

1. The OP specifically asked how to get the effect in post. Explaining how to do it in the studio doesn't address his question.

2. It doesn't require "hours" of work in post; more like a few seconds. If the picture has already been shot it's hardly "wasted" work to take a few seconds to add a blue cast to the shadows and midtones.

Charlie-CNP wrote:
I know you want to do this in post, but Ken is spot on with his comment of lighting. Keep things simple and shoot it in camera vs. having to rely on post. You can get this with the right experience lighting your subject, and then set your camera WB to around 4200k and adjust to your desired taste to get the blue tones. It will save you hours of wasted work flow in post trying to create a "look" that can be shot in a quarter of the time from the get go. Good luck

If the blue came from the lighting, wouldn't the highlights be more blue too?

Changing the color temperature of the light doesn't seem to me like it would achieve the same things that you can do with things like split toning or messing with the color curves. Which people do a lot in post.

Peano wrote:
To unpack the color, check RGB values in the highlights, midtones, and shadows. It seems to be pretty straightforward:

- Highlights are neutral: 242.242.242

- Midtones (assuming the background was neutral) are high in blue: 122.124.132

- Shadows are even higher in blue: 2.4.30

These are consistent with pulling the shadow end of the blue curve upward, as I noted earlier.

Peano, you should have a standard template you can cut and paste for the number of times you've explained this lol  you are a persistent helper.

M,

Carlos Ignacio M wrote:
Either a 20 inch reflector or beauty dish as a key, main light. There should not be a fill light or reflector lighting up the shadows on the opposite side. The model should be at a distance from the backdrop so there is no spill. Flags must be used so the background lighting does not spill on to the model.

Short light.

The Full Frame wrote:
Peano, you should have a standard template you can cut and paste for the number of times you've explained this lol

I do! But in this case I needed to show the values for this particular image. Otherwise, I just paste in the links to the other cross-processing posts.

William Kious wrote:
*snip*
. Perhaps a bit of liquefy to bring her waist in (there's no way that corset was slimming her quite that much.) A bit of carving, etc.

We cant even see her waist! She looks about normal to me.

Hairflicksmodelphotog wrote:

We cant even see her waist! She looks about normal to me.

Sure you can. Look at the original post.

Neil Snape wrote:
Here is one done that way yet outdoors.

hi neil, i get that you boost the blue channel in the shadow areas- but how do you bring back the skin color to rich brown to golden? sometimes i see cross-processed photos like this with green/cyanish tint, i still am wondering how you guys do that.

_volt_ wrote:
hi neil, i get that you boost the blue channel in the shadow areas- but how do you bring back the skin color to rich brown to golden?

Layer mask.

_volt_ wrote:

hi neil, i get that you boost the blue channel in the shadow areas- but how do you bring back the skin color to rich brown to golden? sometimes i see cross-processed photos like this with green/cyanish tint, i still am wondering how you guys do that.

Maybe you can try tweaking the dark tones via Selective Color by lowering the Yellow values under Colors>Blacks? You would probably want to mess with Colors>Neutrals a little bit too... but just add salt and pepper to taste.

Ken Marcus Studios wrote:
Lighting !

Is that all? Are you sure about that, Ken?

Dan OMell wrote:
the post-processing question was cleared up in 1001st time

this is the video of the session:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qwKJwttqW8

she looks much skinnier in the photo

Dan, the video looks color graded too. 

So, there really isn't a general curve tweak to do the color shift (eg cyan sky) whilst making the model's skin color reasonable?

Thanks for answering guys.

_volt_ wrote:
So, there really isn't a general curve tweak to do the color shift (eg cyan sky) whilst making the model's skin color reasonable?

it depends on how dramatic your tweaking is, probably. to keep the skin tones reasonable, you always can use masking, after all

personally, I prefer a hand tool in the curves adjustment layer using one of the 3 color channels individually. it is much more precise, and you can always adjust skin tones later, after tweaking some other areas, for example shadows. etc.
very powerful thing.

was lazy to capture  my own snapshots and found the generic one for the combined RGB:

Peano wrote:
To unpack the color, check RGB values in the highlights, midtones, and shadows. It seems to be pretty straightforward:

- Highlights are neutral: 242.242.242

- Midtones (assuming the background was neutral) are high in blue: 122.124.132

- Shadows are even higher in blue: 2.4.30

These are consistent with pulling the shadow end of the blue curve upward, as I noted earlier.

Can you tell me on what tool can you adjust the midtones, etc. I added a color balance layer but that wasnt it. Im still learning Photoshop and there always seems to something I cant figure out. Your profile said to email you but I couldnt find your email listed. You can email me at [email protected] if you wouldnt mind.

Thanks!

Megan E Griscom wrote:
Can you tell me on what tool can you adjust the midtones, etc.

Try curves. Use the targeted adjustment tool for the midtones.

EDIT: I doubt if you even need that. In the original target image, the color adjustment was probably as simple as this:

Megan E Griscom wrote:
Can you tell me on what tool can you adjust the midtones, etc. I added a color balance layer but that wasnt it.

using a midtone mask can help.

Michael Pandolfo wrote:

I could be wrong but I think the OP doesn't want to know about lighting. Ewww. He wants to know how he can recreate it in Photoshop. I think CS7 will have an Instagram filter which will please so many.

I didn't even know this was "a look." I just thought it was a little heavy toward the blue range.

That^^^

Paul Ferradas wrote:
And not being able to subscribe to this post unless I pay is BS!

Just save it as a bookmark...

Paul Ferradas wrote:
Cool topic... Thanks for your info Peano. One question I have is not the color but the actual shot itself. As you know digital cameras can be tack sharp but if you notice this image there's a certain degrade to it. I can't quiet spell it out but it's looks rather soft, or is it grain? Almost looks scanned, blurred, faded? Just by adjusting color you won't get this LOOK? What else is going on to the image?

that's what i think and sai in the previous comment, i think it's fully denoised, so what do you think?

Megan E Griscom wrote:
When you say 'unpack color' what do you mean?

Measure the RGB values for the darkest shadows, the midtones, and the brightest highlights.

or colors>nuetrals? waht does that mean.

It means the RGB values are equal. R = G = B. Doesn't matter what the numbers are. If they're the same, that's a neutral tone. They all live along the left edge of the color picker:

The values noted from peanos post where are they found at?

In the Info panel. You can just hover over an area with any tool, and the Info panel will show the RGB values. Or you can place sample points, and each one will have a fixed readout in the Info panel.