How Can I Achieve This Look?

[JoeyFoShoey]

Hi All,

I'm trying to understand how this photo is processed or taken to achieve the tones it has.

The colors are vibrant yet somehow almost gray and very clean looking. I can't quite put my finger on it.

I'm not entirely new to LR, but I've tried messing with different color adjusters such as HSL and I just can't replicate the quality of these colors in my own shots.

http://thevivaluxury.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/bermuda-vivaluxury-2017-outfits-15-848x566@2x.jp...

http://thevivaluxury.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/net-a-porter-VL-2017-11-848x1272@2x.jpg

http://thevivaluxury.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/bloomingdales-vivaluxury-malibu-2017-1-848x1272@...

Thank you for any help or advice.

[Akash Sharma]

Hi joeyfoshoey,

It depends a lot on the camera you're using and the ISO settings, You may also use other local adjustments to enhance your image overall look and quality. See How to apply local adjustments to photos in Photoshop Lightroom

Hope that helps.

Thanks,

Akash

[Todd Shaner]

Try using the +Clarity, +Vibrance, and -Contrast in the LR Basic panel.

[Joe Foe Toe]

Reminds me of "how do I get to Carnegie Hall?" A: "Practice".  First, understand that Lightroom might not be the main tool of choice used here.

But for the second photo,there appears to be desaturation used in combination with brush-masking. Look at how there's a fade to gray, especially as it approaches upper left of photo. I suspect this is on top of some overall selective color desaturation. There could be use of color curves in ToneCurve as well.  The model's face has probably had a good smoothing in Photoshop using frequency-separation, but you might get some reasonable results using some combo of brush masking w clarity/sharpness/noise in Lightroom.

The third photo uses settings of retro-toning. There are lots of tutorials on this and both free and $ presets.

The first photo appears to have benefited from a lightly overcast day. Could have been additional lighting and/or fill off-camera. Add the kind of beautiful light you might only get using a fabulous lens in Bermuda!

Summary: lots of advanced techniques here - high-end advertising images shot and retouched by pros who could name some of the techniques better than I. I hate to say, but no easy one-fits-all adjustment solutions that I can see. Back to the "practice" joke. People spend all sorts of time learning and perfecting these techniques. Lightroom and Photoshop tutorials are your best friends here, and there's a wealth of decent free tutorials on YouTube and elsewhere.

[cmgap]

Share an image of yours (RAW) that you would like to see edited this way and I will share settings with you.

[JoeyFoShoey]

Hi cmgap,

Sorry for the delay. I've linked below to a RAW image I took which I'd like to see a similar style in.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx0uPMkKSDu8ckhoVFNoRVJRVVE

Thanks for your help!

[Todd Shaner · Accepted solution]

To achieve a different "look" such as in the linked pictures choosing a specific camera profile in the Camera Calibration panel should be your first step. With your file DSC_0346.NEF the Camera Vivid profile appears to be the best choice. As mentioned by joefry99 there are many different ways to achieve the rendering in these three photos. I was able to achieve very close rendering of the  bloomingdales-vivaluxury-malibu-2017-1-848x1272@2x.jpg photo with your similar DSC_0346.NEF file using only LR as follows. The below JPEG was created from the edited NEF in the LR Export module to match the NEF resolution in the LR Compare screenshot. I used much higher than normal LR Sharpening settings in both the Develop module Detail panel and Export Output Sharpening panel to match the "look" in the comparison photo. Not sure why such high settings were required, but none the less the image rendering is a pretty close match.

1:1 ZOOM View Compare (click on image to see full-size)

[JoeyFoShoey]

trshaner,

Thank you for sharing those adjustments. I definitely didn't know about the camera calibration profile setting.

I'm going to attempt to apply similar adjustments this evening on another photo and share my results to see if there is any critique available.

Thanks again