Fashion photography photoshop help!

[photographyhotbox]

Hi guys,

I am new to photoshop and I've been watching a lot of tutorials, etc. online and cannot seem to be able to figure out how to do exactly what I want! I have a fashion blog and I like to take pictures of myself in different outfits to post on my website, but I want them to have a certain "look" to them that I know can only be achieved through photoshop. For example, the site lookbook.nu is basically full of fashion bloggers posting pictures of their style, and they have really professional-looking fashion pictures. How do I do this in photoshop? Here are some examples of the types of pictures I am trying to mimic:

lookbook.nu/look/3672851-Abstract-Print
lookbook.nu/look/3677347-Nirvana-is-Neon
lookbook.nu/look/3677291-Hint-of-tropics
lookbook.nu/look/3678661-Well-Suited
lookbook.nu/look/3679307-London-Olympic-2-12-Swimming
lookbook.nu/look/3570691-Be-Young-Be-Foolish-Be-Happy
lookbook.nu/look/3678167-Neon-Lover


Thanks in advance for your help

 

[ibclare]

There's no one effect but the quickest answer I can give you (without spending time I don't have at the moment) is duplicate your original layer, go to image>adjustments>desaturate. Set that layer to screen or overlay; you might try soft light. Those blend modes will give you different results. You can also play with the opacity of the layer, add layer mask and reveal more of the original where you want it. There may be a use here and there of gaussian or surface blur. Good luck with this. You'll probably get more and different advice, lots of ways to achieve same result in PS.

 

[Tegger]

Here are some examples of the types of pictures I am trying to mimic

I'm not quite sure what exact effect you're trying to mimic.

These all look like professional photos taken with professional cameras. Any Photoshop work here is likely restricted to cleaning up details, adjusting exposure and color, and technical stuff like that.

About the only thing I can see that might be an "effect" is the graduated blur of the background. If your photo is sharp all over, which is common with non-professional cameras, you'll need to add a "Smart Blur" to the background. To achieve that, you'll need to make a separate layer for your subject, so that you can blur the background separately. I did some testing here, and found that combined "Smart" and "Box" Blurs seemed to work sorta-good. A bit more time would probably reveal a better solution. Nesting the blurs might be required, depending. Note that my mask in the below images is a 10-second rough, not what I'd use in finished work.



Layered PSD file:
http://www.tegger.com/smart-blur.psd
Warning: 11MB!

This isn't really a Newbie effect, though. Or is it?

 

[thedirtyknapkin]

I'm not quite sure what exact effect you're trying to mimic.

These all look like professional photos taken with professional cameras. Any Photoshop work here is likely restricted to cleaning up details, adjusting exposure and color, and technical stuff like that.

i agree, there is no effect on any of those.

my personal thing is to add a lot of detail to everything but the skin, kind of like an inverse skin softening
here is an exemple



to see actual color you might have to click the image, some browsers don't display color correctly

 

[ibclare]

i agree, there is no effect on any of those.

my personal thing is to add a lot of detail to everything but the skin, kind of like an inverse skin softening

Well now, I don't agree about there being no effect. I do, however understand what you refer to dirtynapkin. You did a beautiful job with that photo, btw.

Here are the steps I followed as I outlined them above. It may have taken 3 minutes ... tops.

Duplicate layer. Desaturate this. Change blend mode to screen (what mode depends on the image). Apply layer mask and restore some of the original color intensity, in this case face and hair, with emphasis on eyes. Of course you could increase the intensity wherever by painitng out more or all over by decreasing the opacity of the upper layer.

 

[oxonium]

It would be a lot easier to help if you could post one of your images that u want to change. If I have time I could make you a template psd file that you can use to teach yourself how to do it. Basically you can reuse the layers i make on your images all you’d have to do is draw new masks i guess or move the sliders already created in the image.

 

[ibclare]

OK folks, good of everybody to chip in; thank you. But since we haven't heard back from the OP in 2 days, there doesn't seem to be any reason to put more effort into this.

I am closing the thread.