Screenshot of Shibuya Crossing Photo
Hello Elaine!
I’ll give a quick intro on my workflow. Basically, my end goal is to make my photos filmic and cinematic, with the following characteristics:
— Generally vibrant colors, similar to Kodak Chrome or Agfa Vista Slide Film
— Matte or Faded Finish
— Light to Medium Grain
— Smooth fall-off from Whites to Highlights. I’ll explain this next time when I discuss tone curves in detail.
— Subtle tints in shadows and highlights
— No “pure blacks” or “pure whites”. Just shadow, midtones and highlights.
There are two tools that you can use to achieve this. The tone curve (which I’ll discuss now), and the HSL (Hue, Saturation and Luminance) sliders, which I’ll discuss next time.
An image is made up of different “tones”: Blacks, Shadows, Midtones, Highlights and Whites.
The tone curve is essentially a representation of all the entire tonal range of an image, represented by a diagonal line.
The diagonal line is the original “tonality” of the image. You change the tones by pulling certain points up or down.
Pulling a point upwards makes it lighter than its original tone.
Pulling a point downwards makes it darker than its original tone.
The arrows that I indicated above are the directions that I usually move the points to achieve the look that I want: a faded image, with punch in the middle, and gentle fall-off in the highlights.
Take note of the tonal ranges below: shadows, midtones and highlights.
If you’re aiming for the film look, you should avoid the Blacks (no details) and the Whites (overblown details, unless it’s a light source, like the sun).
The diagonal line above is my starting point. To achieve the Shibuya Crossing photo, I made the following adjustments to the tone curve:
To make a faded image with soft blacks (ie, dark gray instead of pure black), I pull-up Point A, until it’s slightly below point B. Depending on your image, you might want a little contrast in your shadows. It might look too flat, so I added a new point X and pulled it down.
To give your photo a “punch”, play with point C. Don’t pull it up too much; it might look too “digital”, if you know what I mean.
To soften the image, pull down point D a little bit. It makes your “Whites” look more “Off-White” or more “filmic”. As I’ve said earlier, avoid pure blacks and pure whites. I add extra points and make adjustments (such as the one between B & C), so hide unwanted details.
Here’s the before and after screenshot:
Take note of the sky on the left. It’s a bit blown out. Pulling down point D and E preserves details in the highlights, making it a bit more filmic.
I’ll continue next time with the second part - the actual colors or the HSL curves :) Let me know if you want me to explain something further, or there’s a photo in my feed that you want me to discuss, I’d be more than willing to teach you. Hope this helps, Elaine!