Photo postprocessing effect for colors

[a.argonyx]

Dear experts,


I see sometimes photos with vivid beautiful colors taken in clubs or stage, with flash. It is obvious that the result is achieved using some effect and I would so much like to find out how to achieve it.


I attach an example of what I mean.



As you see, the colors of the clothing are vivid but the skin remain natural or I would even say that also the skin has a nice texture.


I have tried different combinations in Photoshop, including vibrancy. But I don't seem to be able to reproduce such thing. Most of the time the effects also destroy the skin.
You see, there are two things: first is the skin texture, it doesn't shine. Then there is this uniform color on the guy's clothing. It looks like the color bandwidth has been shorten or shifted, I don't know.
I am pretty sure that this is no effect one can achieve using basic manipulation, there must be some special process.
So I'm pretty sure it is a plugin. Also because I know that these photographers publish hundreds of photos already the day after a party, it would take much longer to work manually on all these details.


I appreciate any advice on how to achieve a similar result from my RAW photos.


Cheers,
Andra

 

[Tom Mann]

First of all, this clearly is a well-done, professionally shot image intentionally designed to look like it was a casual grab shot. If I remember correctly, I've seen shots like this produced by Nikon (or Canon?) to promote Nikon's CLS off-camera flash system. This is no grab shot, so don't think you are going to get this by running a point and shoot image thru some magic plugin.

There are many things that contribute to this look. Lighting is where it all starts. It is enormously important. For example in the photo you posted notice that there are at least three light sources, most likely 4:

1) The 1st source is very near the camera and is quite small, probably just a hot-shoe flash used to trigger/control the other flashes. You can determine the position of this one by looking carefully at the catchlights in her eyes. This source fills in shadows, but is adjusted to be quite weak relative to the other lights so it doesn't overpower them. Notice that the man's near arm isn't the brightest part of the image, which it would be if only an on-camera flash was used.

2) The 2nd obvious light source is high overhead (on a light pole held by an assistant) and slightly to the (viewer's) left (look at the shadows under their chins). These shadows are not sharp, so this flash probably has a small softbox mounted to it. This light provides sculpting of their facial features, brings out texture in the skin, folds in the dress, etc.

3) The 3rd obvious source is a rim light directly in back of the subjects. It is another point source. This helps separate the subjects from the background. Look at her hair.

4) The 4th source is the least obvious, but is in many ways is probably the most important one with respect to the uniformity of light throughout the foreground and lack of specular reflections from the subjects' skin. This source is almost certainly a fairly large softbox or octabox (ie, at least 2 feet on a side) to the left of the camera and somewhere around neck level. It may be gridded to provide some directionality to this large extended source. The size of this source provides gentle fall-off to the light and overall uniformity.

You say, "...I know that these photographers publish hundreds of photos already the day after a party,...". I believe this statement because I have done this many times myself, but it requires at least two or three assistants to handle the off-camera lights. With decent lighting, surprisingly little work in PS is needed. Without good lighting, as you said, you'll be sitting at your computer putting in a half-hour per image to try to get close to the look you could get with good lighting. Over the weekend, I'll try to find a couple of my own images where I used 3 lights at an event (1 on-camera, 1 overhead, 1 rim).

HTH,

Tom

 

[a.argonyx]

Dear Tom,

First of all, thanks for taking the time to answer my question with so much care!
Now about the lighting. I have seen these guys taking photos and I can tell you that the only close light they have is one single flash held in the opposite hand of the camera, pointing toward the subject. They use a large diffuser mount on the flash, this is why the light is distributed well. But that's it for the close lighting, I'm very sure.
Now, the second flash on the distance on the example I have published is indeed most probable triggered from the same camera to give this nice effect.

I've been shooting professionally for 8 years now but I'm an outside photographer. I have started to take some photos of dancers like this, the composition is quite acceptable. And I have experimented an off-shoe flash with a diffuser like above, triggered by a radio remote mount on my camera. Finally I get to obtain a good uniform lit result but the effect you see in the photo, no way

I'm shooting with a Nikon D3.

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Andra - are saying that u saw that specific image being shot, and that it was done using only 1 hand held flash? If so, there's something very wrong because there is clear evidence for each of the flashes I mentioned in that photo. May I ask, where did u get it?

OTOH, if u are saying that you have seen similar images that u are absolutely sure were taken using only a single, hand held off-camera flash (with diffuser), could u post an example or 2, and we can discuss them.

There is is no question that one can immediately realize a major improvement by having just a single diffused, off camera flash, and that one can further improve such shots with a much more reasonable amount of work in post processing, but to discuss this sort of intermediate approach, we really need a concrete example.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Tom Mann]

PS - Another option would be for us to discuss one of your own pix that was taken with a single off-camera diffused flash, or even better, such a flash plus a touch of fill from a flash mounted in the hot shoe of your D3. That takes care of two of the sources I talked about. The rim lighting is not a big effect, so let's not worry about that at the moment.

T

 

[Tom Mann]

PPS - I just attempted to look at the metadata for the photo you posted earlier and it appears that it has been wiped, but I did notice that the main part of the file name was "nikon-example". Was this indeed from one of Nikon's advertisements?


T