What sort of post-production do I do to get a look like http://blog-imgs-44.fc2.com/w/o/r/world … 920b2e.jpg ?

It's a picture by David Lachapelle.  I'm going for his look in general.  I know his shoots have a budget bigger than some hollywood movies (and a larger crew), but I have an idea what I'm going to do in the studio.

In post, I need a high saturation look, but how do I get his smooth almost surreal tones and texture?  Where can get suitable digital backdrops?

Another example is http://www.madonnacollection.cz/galerie … lle_06.jpg

Thanks for any help you can suggest.

Use some big softboxes, and try something like Imogenic Portraiture for the skin and smooth look in general, if you are looking for a decent quick fix without much hassle.

As for the colour and saturation, looks like some curves layers to me with some warmth/vividness added in. Maybe a touch of bleach bypass-type boosting. Nothing too difficult. You may want to control things with a few separate layer masks for hair, skin, etc.

Cheers,

David Hirsh

seting up the right lights, a photographer with expertise will know what to do r at least get close enough to it then if more is required, in comes the photoshop geeks ^_^

As for digital backgrounds you could always take the photos with a green croma key backdrop so a digital background can be addad after in photoshop. If your geting your photos taken by a photographer in his own studio i am sure he will have one r be able to get it for you. too do all this your self (despite it being very time consuming) you can buy all the equipment (not includeing the camera) for under £500 wich to me is very good. geting the area to do it in is much harder and having someone with a good enough digital slr who knows what hes doing is also = hard.

xx

"How do I get to Edmonton?"  - in most cases with a plane.

lighting - zoom on the eyes and you will see most of the setup

the effect you probably look for is something along the lines of:
duplicate image, new layer blend - "soft light", blur
(there are many variations, but this is more or less the basic idea)
.. that is after some DnB cleanup as usual

There is nothing special about this picture other than the model.  The EXIF of the picture says Photoshop 7.0.  Look's like two softboxs on the right side of the camera about two o'clock high. and a hair light on the left side back of the model pointing at her part.

Basic Photoshop, eye whites, teeth, skin. some dodging under her jaw line. I would have added a white reflector to add in lighting and another high light in her eyes.  She was photographed on a white background.  Look at the white contamination in her hair.  See you can't see any blue of the background thru her hair. A digital blue background with white blurs was added. The background was gaussian blurred.

If you look closer, you can see on the edges of her hair missed in the extraction, no lose hairs is the tell-tale key.

BTW, I have brought digital backdrops from Amazon.com and backdrop manufactors.  Just make sure they are royalty free.

Since you've posted this on the retouching forum, you can achieve this look from the use of the following:
1. overlay
2. dodge and burn (using softlight)
3. gaussian blur

for that smooth skin, try using the nix software.
for the backdrops, you can download in the internet or make your own if you have good eyes in colors.