How to???

[Andrew Locke]

Hey

Can anyone assist me with this photo effect.

How do I get the foreground leaves so light?

It must be more than just black/white so what would this particular effect be called?

Thanks in advance

 

[IamSam]

Well, I would say that this "effect" was the lighting and the camera itself and has no particular name. The leaves in the foreground are soft and out of focus because the camera was focused on the Elephant through the trees. It was probably taken during the day in bright conditions which could have caused the "blow out" in the out of focus foreground leaves which were in direct sunlight as opposed to those in the midground which were slightly shaded.

If I were to try and re-create this effect on a similar image, I would use a Curves adjustment layer, adjusted to the bright side, reverse the layer mask (of the adjustment layer), and the Brush Tool (set to white) to add the brightness to the selected leaves.
Then you could use any of the blurring techniques for the soft blur.

 

[Tom Mann]

It was almost certainly shot on infrared film. This makes leaves turn white. It's as simple as that.

T

 

[MikeMc]

Tom that is old school, and correct!
had forgotten about old IR film....I miss my Rodinal.........

 

[IamSam]

Beats my explanation!

 

[agentmoeller]

If you wanted to "simulate" this effect, I would probably use a brightness adjustment layer. (maybe mix it in with a B/W adjustment layer)

 

[Paul]

nelly image with flower brush applied

:mrgreen:

 

[IamSam]

No Paul, you forgot the IR film effect!!

 

[Paul]

Yeah i did think of that when i posted it Sam but i was waiting for the proff to pop in and correct me

 

[Tom Mann]

And, if you don't want to do this the old-fashioned way using actual B&W IR film, one can either:

a) Convert one of your old beater DSLRs for this purpose by removing the IR-reject filter in front of the sensor, and put an IR-pass filter over the lens. I've never done this myself, but there is a quite a subculture of photographers going this route, and they produce beautiful images, and a lot of discussion of this approach on the web.

b) Fake it in PS. Below, I used the more or less the method suggested by AgentM, except that I first selected the green areas, then brightened, desaturated, and adjusted their contrast (while still in RGB color mode), then did a final conversion to B&W.

Original:



Conventional B&W conversion:



TJM's B&W IR simulation:



Adobe even has a preset for their B&W adjustment layer called "IR". Personally, I never use it as I think the results are too harsh, e.g.,



HTH,

Tom