What Would It Take?

The_One · Mar 5, 2009

Hello Friends,

Coming Sun I am doing my first wedding as a secondary photographer. A bit nervous but confident enough to go through with it

While researching for professional wedding photographers I came across a website which had some outstanding pictures in my opinion(http://www.dreamlife.net.au). See first 3 attached pics.

To me they seem to be enhanced in PS and I would love to know how to get those effects. Also what setting to use on camera while shooting such images in the first place? Also look at image 2, does anyone know how to get the couple in color while leaving the rest in B/W?

The last image is what I took and was able to enhance a little bit but I still don't think I am anywhere close.

I would appreciate if someone can shed some light and guide me to become better.

Thanks
The_One

bjorkfiend · Mar 5, 2009

The_One · Mar 5, 2009

bjorkfiend said:
I will leave the photography advice to the professionals but will caution you to remove any photos that do not belong to you and replace them with links to the hosting page. This will avoid any conflict with the rules of TPF.

Good luck with your first wedding gig though!

You are right. I've added the link to their website. Hope that's fine.

BuZzZeRkEr · Mar 6, 2009

It's a funny thing (might be on a slight tangent), but if you've been in the wedding photography business and do market research....you'll notice one common denominator when it comes to portfolio pictures. The vast majority of wedding photographers use outdoor scenes in their portfolio....almost all. There is a reason for this. Just an observation. Good luck with the shoot.

Wyjid · Mar 6, 2009

as far as the colours go, if you like enhancing/messing with them, i like using the selective colour feature (image, adjust, selective colour). you can then fiddle with each colour individually. i only use hue saturation after selective colour, and still not all the time. as far as actual selective colouring (the colour people in black and white) there are a few ways to do it and you can always experiment and find new ones. one way is to simply select the people using lasso and magic wand, then copy and paste. then select your background layer and convert it into black and white. then take an eraser and clean up the edges of the people layer. another way is create a second layer of the whole image, desaturate it, then use the eraser and erase everything that you want to be colour. the saturate desaturate tool can be useful in this too. also consider the possibility of not a complete contrast between saturation and desaturation. you can have two dif reletive levels of saturation, or desaturation with the subject lightly coloured. play around and see what style you like.

The_One · Mar 6, 2009

BuZzZeRkEr said:
It's a funny thing (might be on a slight tangent), but if you've been in the wedding photography business and do market research....you'll notice one common denominator when it comes to portfolio pictures. The vast majority of wedding photographers use outdoor scenes in their portfolio....almost all. There is a reason for this. Just an observation. Good luck with the shoot.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/members/buzzzerker.html
You are right BuZzZeRkEr, it does make sense. Thanks

The_One · Mar 6, 2009

Wyjid said:
as far as the colours go, if you like enhancing/messing with them, i like using the selective colour feature (image, adjust, selective colour). you can then fiddle with each colour individually. i only use hue saturation after selective colour, and still not all the time. as far as actual selective colouring (the colour people in black and white) there are a few ways to do it and you can always experiment and find new ones. one way is to simply select the people using lasso and magic wand, then copy and paste. then select your background layer and convert it into black and white. then take an eraser and clean up the edges of the people layer. another way is create a second layer of the whole image, desaturate it, then use the eraser and erase everything that you want to be colour. the saturate desaturate tool can be useful in this too. also consider the possibility of not a complete contrast between saturation and desaturation. you can have two dif reletive levels of saturation, or desaturation with the subject lightly coloured. play around and see what style you like.

HI Wyjid,

I followed your instructions and was successfully able to create a similar image. Thanks for your explanation.