How to create these shots

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Looking around at some still photo's, I found a few very that really caught my eye. I found these on the fujifilm website:

 

Both of these pictures seem to have some kind of an unnatural look, like it was drawn with pastels or something. Considering these won awards in fujifilm distinctions I *doubt* they have been edited digitally.

 

 

 

Colours on this picture look amazing, I have NO idea how they did this.

 

 

 

Again, just looks so unreal.

 

 

Is that high contrast pastel look achieved in development or something? If so, what kind of process is needed to make the picture go like that?

 

Tnx for any suggestions,

Dan.

[David Mullen ASC]

Both are using what could be called the digital version of dodging & burning, creating a Power Window effect around the subject to brighten it, creating a subtle vignette.

 

In the first case, this was all that was necessary to make the subject brighter & warmer than the surrounding castle OR some sort of artificial lighting was used on the doorway area that was warmer than the surrounding natural overcast light (see how the stonework fades to a colder, darker tone above the subject.) The faint shadow of the person on the doorway suggest perhaps a light was added. The first photo has a very "slide film" look, so it may have been a large format Fujichrome slide. The colors may have been pushed in intensity digitally slightly, or it just may be a super-saturated stock like Velvia, maybe even underexposed and push-processed.

 

The second looks like a b&w photo tinted blue (with the vignette added to brighten the face), but it may have been a color photo turned b&w and THEN tinted blue. It's lit by a big overhead soft source and probably was exposed brighter overall then the area outside the face was darkened in post, rather than the other way around (underexposed and the face area brightened.)

[Tim J Durham]

Looking around at some still photo's, I found a few very that really caught my eye. I found these on the fujifilm website:

 

Both of these pictures seem to have some kind of an unnatural look, like it was drawn with pastels or something. Considering these won awards in fujifilm distinctions I *doubt* they have been edited digitally.

 

Tnx for any suggestions,

Dan.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The first looks like a (non-parallel) grad sandwich and the second, you can see in the tires behind her head that this area was dodged in printing by someone (in both cases) who really knows what they're doing.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Second one's great, if a bit bandwagon-jumpingly monochrome. The first one is just garish - if I'd created that it Photoshop everyone'd be telling me how ugly and overdone it was.

 

Phil

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Velvia slide film eh? I've used it before, came out beautiful, although I haven't managed to make any prints from them yet, and I can't find my projector to see them on a bigger screen. (probably in the loft no doubt..)

 

Anyway, I think I might have to give that a go one day, now that I know how it was created.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, sorry I couldn't reply sooner, been kinda busy recently. (And I forgot I made this post.... :blink: :wacko: duhhhh... )

 

(Oh yeh and, just to say happy birthday Tim Tyler, I noticed at the bottom of the page it's your b-day. Happy b-day! B) )

Edited May 17, 2005 by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

[MiguelDelValle]

but there is this silk quality to them that I dont know how to explain, the colors are muted in a way, skin tones are unnatural looking but pretty good.

 

What is it?

 

I know its a photoshop technique but how do they do that? the silky texture.

Edited May 18, 2005 by MiguelDelValle

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

The most common skin technique is to create a very soft-focus version of the same image and begin to blend it through to the original.

 

Phil

[Matt Pacini]

That top image is fantastic!

I wonder what focal length lens they used?

Pretty flippin' wide!

MP

[MiguelDelValle]

Hi,

 

The most common skin technique is to create a very soft-focus version of the same image and begin to blend it through to the original.

 

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

well yes I have done that but I always end with a difussed image like a double promist, it does something to the skin, yes, but in this pictures I dont find the halo-like texture of the soft focus blend technique.

 

Maybe I should try with less density on the blend. :-)

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Normally you do it selectively, erasing the foreground (sharp) image to reveal the background using a large, soft, low-pressure airbrush tool, so you can control exactly where it punches through to the diffused version. This selectivity is also why the technique is tricky to use for motion picture work (though often not impossible, if you have sufficiently-good material to key the skintones).

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

Hi,

 

Normally you do it selectively, erasing the foreground (sharp) image to reveal the background using a large, soft, low-pressure airbrush tool, so you can control exactly where it punches through to the diffused version. This selectivity is also why the technique is tricky to use for motion picture work (though often not impossible, if you have sufficiently-good material to key the skintones).

 

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was able to do this in real-time using the diffusion feature of the Color Tool Box package in the high-end DaVinci suites. It basically does the diffused layer effect but you can draw a Power Window for areas to keep sharp. Better than the usual Defocusing feature on some DaVinci's; this is a true diffusion affect like a Gassian Blur overlay.

[Guest Kai.w]

I was able to do this in real-time using the diffusion feature of the Color Tool Box package in the high-end DaVinci suites.  It basically does the diffused layer effect but you can draw a Power Window for areas to keep sharp. Better than the usual Defocusing feature on some DaVinci's; this is a true diffusion affect like a Gassian Blur overlay.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

A good idea is to try different blending modes for adding the diffused layer.

Usually I do "glows" like this:

Luma key the footage over a black frame. Take this and blur it, then take this and "add" it ontop of the original footage (trying different modi). With this you get control over the size of the diffusion (blur radius) plus the "strength" (changing the luma key or do a histogramm adjustment of the matte).

 

 

-k

[Dominik Muench]

:o :o woow that looks awesome.

this dodging and burning technique soudns familiar to me through my photoshop work, when you want to achieve something like that in motion picture does that mean you have to do it by single frame editing ? or is there a way like david said in the davinci suit that this can be applied to a complete scene ?

that is a really amazing look.

 

take a look at the french movie Vidoque with gerade depardieu, it was shot on digital, and it has a very similar look to the first image.

Edited May 19, 2005 by Dmuench

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

It can be done to moving images using more or less any kind of keying that's capable of isolating the skintones; because you're inherently using it to apply an effect that's subtle, any miskeying generally isn't objectionable. As Mr. Mullen mentioned, you can often use soft-edged shapes to further isolate the area you're interested in, cutting out other areas of the frame which might otherwise miskey. Often you can blur the key channel to make any miskeying less obvious - then there's the whole business of moving and resizing your shape to track the movement of the person in frame and adjusting the various settings to deal with changes in lighting and position.

 

In all, it's never going to be terribly quick to do compared to just getting an actress in who has nice skin!

 

Phil

[Dominik Muench]

so would that have to be done on an animated key frame mask basis ? or can you just apply that to a certain color/tonal range in the image ?

[drew_town]

so would that have to be done on an animated key frame mask basis ? or can you just apply that to a certain color/tonal range in the image ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You could isolate the colors, granted there are no other colors in that range within the frame. In FCP it's called secondary color correction, and it's actually an easy and fast task to perform but often it doesn't yield the best results. It's a lot like keying, so all the problems associated with keying (except spill maybe) would be present. A garbage matte/travel matte could ultimately do the same thing. It would have to be a frame by frame traveling matte unless the color range didn't move or change in size.

 

I prefer the travel matte method because I know I can make it work every time, even though it may take a good bit longer. Secondary color correction is too unpredictable in the video realm. After Effects is my travel matte software of choice.

 

If you have the special edition DVD of Se7en, you can actually see them do a secondary color correction. They make it seem easy when working with film's color space and resolution. And software a bit better than FCP or After Effects.

[Dominik Muench]

ahh i see, interesting. i think i might get a few roles of 16mm soon and do a bit of experimenting, thats exciting.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Either and usually both; most often you use a drawn and animated mask to roughly isolate the area you're interested in, then colour/luma/saturation/whatever keying to get it closer, then blur the matte maybe....

 

If you're going to try this at home, do you absolute utmost to get a hard disk full of uncompressed images, as DV compression makes this work incredbly badly.

 

Phil

[Dominik Muench]

cool thx, i really feel like getting some 16mm stock now and trying this out :)

[MiguelDelValle]

Lets see, here is a picture of a model, not that a I love the look but i makes for an intersting skin tone to be used maybe with less effect on some products like commercials or musical clips.

 

What do you guys think how it is done?

[Guest adam T]

(HDR) high dynamic range image.

same pic take with multiple exposures to get a better exp range.

no digi fx necessary.