Recommendations on How to Achieve the "Hazy Grunge" Look

curlysue · Jan 22, 2014

In my travels through Flickr I've come across some really great photos that I love the tone of. They have that almost hazy look to them with blueish tones.

Here's an example of a photo I really love: sneaking up | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
or like this (same photographer): Untitled | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Does anyone know how I would go about getting the same tonal quality? I know it's probably done post process but I can't seem to figure out how to get a similar tone to my photos. I use Photoshop CS5.

jaomul · Jan 22, 2014

Not sure exactly if this is what you are looking for but at a recent Lightroom seminar the guy showed a quick and dirty grunge look by dropping the saturation to minus 50 and increasing clarity slider to plus 50. Tweak from there. Cs5 should have similar sliders in its raw module. Welcome to the forum btw

Edit meant saturation not vibrance

curlysue · Jan 22, 2014

Thanks so much for your suggestion, I'll try that out. I'm sure it'll take a lot of playing around with options.

And thanks for the welcome to the forum!

Braineack · Jan 22, 2014

That's not so much "Hazy Grunge" as it is "Soft Blacks" or "Matte".

Here's a how-to on being cliche: How to Create The Popular Matte Look in Lightroom | Fstoppers

curlysue · Jan 22, 2014

Braineack said:
That's not so much "Hazy Grunge" as it is "Soft Blacks" or "Matte".

Here's a how-to on being cliche: How to Create The Popular Matte Look in Lightroom | Fstoppers

Thanks so much! This is exactly the look I was talking about. Sorry, it was difficult to describe the look but now that you say "matte" that's exactly what I mean.