• Adobe Photoshop

  How to achieve this retouching effect

  Posted by Phillip Crook on June 17, 2010 at 12:01 am

  Hi guys,

  I’m looking to see if anyone can lend some insight on how this photo effect may have been achieved in PS. Everything looks crisp and almost like its CGI with the desaturated colors , and dodge/burn feel. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance

  
  
  

  Darby Edelen replied 15 years, 10 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Christina Rodriguez

  June 18, 2010 at 7:55 pm

  Try this:

  Duplicate your layer
  Use the High Pass filter (In Filters> Other) (radius: 25)

  Then change the layer mode to either Overlay, Soft Light or Hardlight (which ever you like best)

  You could use a mask to soften areas, or change the opacity of the layer to soften effect and once you get a hang of it, in high pass, use different #’s…mess around with variations…)

  There are external filters that do this as well, but this is a “free” way of doing it.

  C.R.
• 

  Darby Edelen

  June 23, 2010 at 2:15 am

  I would also recommend playing with some adjustment layers. Try some interesting Curves, Photo Filter and Channel Mixer set ups. The Black & White adjustment layer can look particularly good if you set it to an Overlay blend mode (Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Linear Light). This gives you a good bleach bypass look. However, these blend modes tend to increase contrast, where as the images you posted look like they purposely had their black level raised and white point reduced to reduce the contrast and give it a subtle ‘blown out’ look. You can do this with a Levels adjustment layer, but I’d recommend Curves for finer control of the middle tones.

  Darby Edelen

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