Help me get this "look"

d70girl · Dec 6, 2006

Here are a few links to some images by photographer named David Hoffman. I love his photos, and in particular his black and whites:

http://newton-i.usefilm.com/images/4/1/5/4/4154/1063518-medium.jpg

http://newton-i.usefilm.com/images/3/8/3/3/3833/981298-medium.jpg

http://newton-i.usefilm.com/images/4/0/5/4/4054/1037930-medium.jpg

Can anyone tell me how to get this same effect on my own black and whites? I CANNOT figure it out. I've tried the channel mixer, selective coloring... and I'm stumped.

What kind of conversion is he using, and how do I get the same result? Any ideas?

Thanks so much in advance!

Sw1tchFX · Dec 6, 2006

First one is a vignette that you can get in the lens distortion filter in photoshop.

2nd, is just the levels way up

3rd. looks like oversharpening to me.

than it looks like a Duotone on top of all that.

Peanuts · Dec 6, 2006

Try after you have converted to black and white (with little contrast) go to Adjustments --> colour balance and play around in there.

d70girl · Dec 8, 2006

Sw1tchFX said:
First one is a vignette that you can get in the lens distortion filter in photoshop.

2nd, is just the levels way up

3rd. looks like oversharpening to me.

than it looks like a Duotone on top of all that.

Can you explain "duotone" to a person (me) who is completely ignorant of the term?

David · Dec 10, 2006

Hi d70girl. The images are all a combination of effects as indicated above, but all have elements of 'high key' images. Here's a link to an ePhotozine tutorial on how to create them in Photoshop - click here.

With regards to duotones, Luminous Landscapes have a good section on the subject, together with details on tritones and quadtones - link here. Their tutorials are pretty good on a range of subjects and well worth browsing when you have the time.

Google will provide a whole host of techniques on how to achieve high key and duotone images.

Good luck.

David

sthvtsh · Dec 11, 2006

Peanuts said:
Try after you have converted to black and white (with little contrast) go to Adjustments --> colour balance and play around in there.

Yeah, black and white then add yellow once. Atleast that's what it looks liek. And dodge around the edges.

seanberry · Dec 11, 2006

When I do a duotone conversion, I follow a method I learned on PhotoshopTV. An example piece is this:

What I do is:
1) Convert to B&W using the channel mixer
2) Create a new "Curves Adjustment Layer"
3) In the "Red" channel, move the highlights up (towards red), and shadows down (towards cyan). This will warm up the highlights and cool down the shadows
4) In the "Blue" channel, move highlights down (towards yellow) and shadows up (towards blue), this does the same thing

Here's the adjustments for the above image:

In general, when I do a duotone image I want to warm the highlights and cool the shadows, but you can change it however you want.

EDIT: I think he might also be playing around with the brightness (exposure), to brighten 'em up just make a "Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer" and bump up the brightness.

EDIT 2: Here's a portrait done using the same technique, did it in like 5 minutes so it's not top quality but it gives you the picture...

Sw1tchFX · Dec 28, 2006

i often find that the quadtones really deepen the shadows, so whenever I convert to a duotone, i bump up the midtones in levels quite a bit to even it out.

ksmattfish · Dec 28, 2006

Regarding the original post: Are you talking about the color? Like this?

I used channel mixer to go from color to BW. Adjust curves until I like it. Switch mode to grayscale. Switch mode to duotone. One color is black, and the other something like Pantone 7407C (#ce9e4e on the color picker). Play around with the second color and the individual color curves until you get what you want.