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Kiawahgolf

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I've been seeing these type portraits a lot with the "Green" tint to them. Could someone please explain the technique for getting this color and "look" to portraits? Please see the attached image below:





I am not new to photography but have a lot to learn about post processing.

Thanks for your help.
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Jordan
 
This one looks like it has some to do with lens flare to begin with, possibly with a sort of whitebalance adjustment to make it slightly greener though I doubt that.

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A Beginning Amateur Photographer
 
Is the picture coming from Nikon or Canon? I often get caught taught that the latter prime lenses produce such light, moody and pleasing tones. Shouldn't be saying this too loud here, since this is Canon sensitive forum, but I have to give Canon primes some honest credit here;)!
 
Try to go for pleasing WB, NOT a "correct" WB.

Environment influences a WB a LOT. if you shoot in place with lot of greenery, like trees or grass, you'll always get some tint. ( If shot with any other then manual preset WB)

Best is to shoot raw, but you dont have to. Most of the decent PP programs have wb tool with 2 sliders- warm / cold and green / magenta. Also with WB "dropper" tool

I usually get dropper and with image at least at 50% click on the white of the eye.
That gets me at least close to the wb i'm looking for.
Then fine tune with 2 sliders...
Honestly, I prefer slightly greening tint before magenta pinkish any day.

For your image, i'd- take brightness down very slightly, Add little contrast ,and warm it up some with wb slider, and then maybe use green magenta slider to add LITTLE more magenta tone to it.
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http://www.infiniteartphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/jps1979/galleries
 
I can't take credit for this image; I was just using it as a reference to the type of color, tone, and mood I have seen in a lot of portraits lately. I use NX2 and find it fairly capable for editing but I have never used CS5 or any other program so I can't compare them. I'm almost certain images like the one I am referring to are not SOOC and I was just wondering what technique I can do to produce similar color, ect.

Thanks!
--
Jordan
 
If you mean that old film look, read these links:

http://layersmagazine.com/curvy-cross-processing.html

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/or/cross-processing.html

Note that you can apply the same type of R,G,B curves adjustments by switching out which channels you push up vs. down.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's easy to argue about equipment and technique, but hard to argue with a good photograph -- and more difficult to capture one .



Gallery and blog: http://esfotoclix.com
Flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22061657@N03
 
I too believe you mean to mimic analog style here, e.g. slightly crossing or simulating film looks (?).

If so, there are a bunch of possibilities to do this with PP apps and there are also a bunch of predefined scripts, presets, plugins etc. available for such tasks for PS, Lightroom, PSE, Gimp ... and so on.

Here are only a few links related to that theme, but if you do a Google search after "crossing" and "film look" etc. you will find much more...

http://www.flickr.com/groups/capturenx/discuss/72157612973335290/

http://www.pixiq.com/article/making-summer-brighter-replicating-film-with-digital

http://www.pixiq.com/article/adding-a-film-look-to-digital-image-files

...good luck!
 
I used NX2 very short time. Yes I have it and it does produce extremely nice Nikon camera profiles ( way better then adobe's ) but the interface is painfull to use and on the same computer with overclocked quad core phenom, 8gb dd3 3 and 2 SSD's in raid 0 where photoshop just FLIES, NX2 lags and you have to wait second or 2 before you see adjustment you just did with the slider. I was about to go crazy because of this.

I'm sure is is possible (probably) but once you get into the the split toning, etc. LR3 (or CS) is way to go. LR3 is 100% by far the best for the photographer for the money and ease of use.

--
http://www.infiniteartphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/jps1979/galleries
 
akjos said:
Very good article, Eno, thanks for sharing. I get there different ways, but I'll definitely try this tutorial. Look really easy.
Click to expand...
No problem. I've tried this look a couple of times... sometimes it works, usually I end up just going for B&W. Here's one I did a while back for a wedding:



I also used a very light yellow haze on top via layer at about 5% opacity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's easy to argue about equipment and technique, but hard to argue with a good photograph -- and more difficult to capture one .



Gallery and blog: http://esfotoclix.com
Flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22061657@N03
 
Wow, lots of information here. I will most certainly invest some time to read the attached links. I see this type of portraiture all the time and it always catches my eye. I would love something like photoshop that has a predefined filter (I'm not the best at PP) :)

It seems that a lot of members here use LR3. I am interested in possibly investing in this software but love the nondestructive workflow NX2 produces. Does destructive mean you do not have the ability to delete an edit you just completed like you can with NX2? Say I go in and complete a couple of different sharpening steps and then decide I want to remove them; is this possible? I just don't want to buy the software and then degrade my images through PP and lack of "destructive editing" knowledge.

Thanks for all your help guys!
--
Jordan
 
akjos said:
ANy software that you use to process is non-descructible.

I'd say LR 3 is really easy, becasue all you have to do is ctrl+Z to go step back, and if you get lost , just right click and hit "reset image"

It Is VERY easy in LR3, just go to split toning tab, and play with 2 sliders. No curves, etc, like in photoshop.
Click to expand...
Awesome! LR3 may be my next photographic purchase. It is becoming more and more appart from looking through thousands of images that PP is a major differentiator in a decent image and a great one. I am open to trying a different program and seeing if it opens up new opportunities for me. One thing I really do like about LR3 is the available plugins like SilverEfex Pro!

One last newbie questions; I have heard people mention using NX2 as their RAW converter and then opening the image in LR or Photoshop to complete their edits. What exactly does this mean and is it important? Are they just saving as TIFF and opening in the program of choice? It seems doing this would double the amount of space needed to save the TIFF.

Thanks!!
Jordan
 
Kiawahgolf said:
...
...

One last newbie questions; I have heard people mention using NX2 as their RAW converter and then opening the image in LR or Photoshop to complete their edits. What exactly does this mean and is it important? Are they just saving as TIFF and opening in the program of choice? It seems doing this would double the amount of space needed to save the TIFF.
Click to expand...
It always depends on what they want to do. - There are many people who still prefer NX2 as a RAW converter since, as they say, it gives them the best conversion results and does keep their internal Nikon camera settings. Others prefer LR3 as a RAW converter since it offers more of a complete workflow, e.g. cataloging, RAW editing & filtering, output and so on.

Some people who use the new Nikon D7K cams but have older LR2 or PS CS 3/4 versions, can't process/convert the D7K NEF files with those older versions, they have to process them either first with something like NX2 or use separately Adobes ACR or some other suitable RAW converter. So to say, in such cases a two way process converting the NEF files to DNG or TIFF and then they can work with those in older LR or PS versions.

Another point is, if you want to tweak and manipulate your images more than you usually can do with NX2 or LR, say exchanging backgrounds, applying filters and doing more advanced image editing and manipulation, in such cases you would also need something like for example PSE 9, PS CS5 or the like to do the final work.

Even LR3.3 nowadays is a very good tool, which offers a lot for a complete workflow, RAW conversion, filtering, applying own presets etc. in one package. But you can yield the same with the big PS CS5 and even more. If cost does play a role, you can even use PSE 9 for many things. - Or you just reuse your NX2 and use some additional tool for cataloging etc. if you have a need for this.

BTW the above PS crossing stuff can also easily be done with Capture NX2, look here...

http://dptnt.com/2008/10/cross-processing-in-capture-nx2/

...the author of that from PS converted tutorial also attached a settings file for NX2 which you may can reuse for tryouts.

Hope this helps at least a little bit...
 
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