In this episode I'm going to show you
how to create a high contrast grungy
portrait, with nothing but natural lights!
Hi everybody, welcome back to another
episode of Exploring Photography right
here on AdoramaTV, brought to you by
Adorama. It's the camera store that has
everything for photographers like you
and me. Well in today's episode, I have a
very special friend his name is Polo.
Come on out here Polo.
This is Polo ,Arnaiz and he is from
Madrid - Spain. Which is where we are right
now, and I met him, because he is a world
traveler like me, and has been all over
the place. You can follow him @conPoloacuestas.
Did I say it right? Yeah.
Okay good, and so what we need to do is
Polo is going to be doing some new trips
and some public speaking and events,
and he needs some really grungy high
contrast images for all of those events.
And one of polos signature items, is his
hair, and his luscious beard. So everybody
knows him around the world, because of
this crazy beard, and so I really want to
make sure that stands out in these
images, and so Polo if you go over to
your space.
He's got.. your space, over there, in your
cage. So what we have here is a really
simple lighting setup. Now you've seen me
do this before, but there's a little bit
of a twist. We are on Polos back patio,
and there's this really nice soft shade,
that is really bringing us into nice
shade, and we have open shade, meaning
that we are right up against a lot of
light coming in this way. Now what that
is going to do for us is, that it is
going to give Polo some amazing specular
highlights in his eyes. If we look at
this from a different vantage point, you
can see that the light is shining over
the patio and reflecting off of the
buildings on the other side of the
street. You can also see that these
buildings reflect different amounts of
light, and that they are different shapes
and sizes, and so what that's going to do
for us is -- that when we crank up the
contrast in Lightroom, and do our
post-production, that's going to make his
eyes very sparkly, and because he's
wearing a black jacket, he's got this
really dark beard with just a touch of
grey, nothing wrong with that, and we'll
crank that up, and that's gonna make
everything on his beard
to be really, really pronounced. Now I
want to make this really focused on his
eyes, and his beard, and so to do that, I
am shooting with my trusty 50 mm
lens wide open at f/1.4. Now that's gonna
do two things for us,
Number 1. Again, it's going to make sure
that the focus is on Polo''s eyes.
They're going to be crystal clear, and
everything else is going to sort of fall
out of focus, specifically this
background. This window back here, it's
not our favorite background, but because
it's out of focus, and because it's also
reflecting all the light, and the images
of the buildings across the street. It's
going to turn out to be pretty nice. So
there you have it soft open shade
specular highlights! Awesome beard, cool
background, f/1.4, 50 mm lens. Let's
start shooting, and I'll see what we get.
Always give yourself options, I'll shoot
some horizontal, and some vertical shots,
so that way, depending on who is
promoting Polo and his rides, they have
some options as well.
Okay Polo, we have our images, but what
needs to do next is to throw those
images into Lightroom, make 'em really
grungy. So let's do that next.
Now that we're in Lightroom, let me show
you exactly my approach to editing each
of these images. Now these are the images
that came right out of the camera. I'm
gonna go through here, and check these
one by one, to pick my winners, and once
I've done that I want to make sure
everything is edited in a consistent way.
Now I've already decided that I'm going
to do two versions, a color version, and a
black-and-white version. Now to save time
I have done some of the work in advance.
So let's start with a color version,
because everything is based on this
image, and this develop process. So if I
zip over into the develop module. The
first thing I want to do is, I want to do
some color toning, and change the clarity
and the blacks, the mid-tones, the
highlights, etcetera. To get that really
high contrast look. Now I've already done
this. I've done my homework, so I've got
this snapshot called baseline Polo. So if
I click that, you can see that I've toned
this, so it's a really cool tone. I did
that by changing the color temperature.
I've also changed my highlight shadows,
and whites etc, to create the contrast
that I want, and then I also cranked up
the clarity to + 20, that is a pretty
significant jump for a portrait, and then
last but not least it took my saturation
down to - 17, and we can look in
here and see that this is pretty punchy
as is, but we need to, we need to take it
one step farther. So to do that I'm going
to right click on this image, and I'm
going to say edit in Photoshop CC 2018.
Now I'm doing that because I want to add
some layers, some filters, and most
notably I want to work with the Nik
software collection, to really add punch
to this image. Now that we're in
Photoshop we can start adding some magic.
So the first thing I'm going to do is
copy this background, so I can have a
non-destructive image. I'm going to go
into my filters, and use the Nik software
collection. Of course it's one of my
favorites, and I'm going to use analog
effects Pro 2. Now once again, I've
already done my homework. So I've done
some things to make this go
very quickly in the video, and so I have
created a custom camera. Now this custom
camera I have named 'Polo Grunge'. So what
I'll do here is, I'm going to go down and
choose 'Polo Grunge'. Let me show you
really quickly the settings that I have
applied to this image. So I did some
basic adjustments, some detail extraction
at 56%. I changed the brightness, I
changed the contrast, and then again I
took the saturation down just a little
bit. I added a very mild lens vignette,
and most importantly I changed the film
type to subtle, and then chose this first
image in the second series here, so that
gives it that toning. It's really what I
want. The other thing I did is, I changed
the grain. So it's at 254, and I made this
over to the hard side, to give it that
really grungy look. So if we zoom in to
100%, you can see I've added this
artificial grain, and that's really
making Polo's eyes, really nice and
punchy. So I'm going to click OK to bring
this back into Photoshop. But there's one
more thing that we need to do, and I
think you've already guessed it. If
you've been watching any of my
post-production videos, and that is to
add a high-pass filter. That's just gonna
over sharpen this image and give Polo's
beard his eyes and his hair that
extra-special sharp look. So now our
image has loaded into Photoshop from
analog effects Pro 2, and then what I'm
going to do here, is create another copy
of this layer. I'll rename that to HPF for
high-pass filter. I'm going to go to
filter other High Pass. Now I want to do
this a pretty, pretty, strong filter. So
I'm going to take this up to 2 pixels.
That is way more than you would ever use
on a standard portrait, but we're going
for grunge. We're going for really high contrast.
Once that's done, you need to take this
and change the layer to an overlay layer.
So that's the blending mode you'll use,
now check this out. Once we've done all
of that, if i zoom in to Polo's eyes
at 100%, you can actually see the
reflections of the buildings on the
other side of the street, and that's me
taking the picture! So let's step back in
time, this is our image straight out of
Lightroom. This is our analog effects Pro
that grunge, and the grain, and this is
the high pass filter, giving that even
more of a grungy look. So if I go back
here, and sorry about that, but go back
here, and look at this, and a normal view
is exactly what we want. So let me save
that, and then we'll do the black and
white version. Now that we're back in
Lightroom, we can do a quick comparison.
So this is our image that I toned in
Lightroom, and then this is what it looks
like after we did our analog effects
wizardry. So that looks really grungy and
cool, but I think we can do even better.
So what I've done is I've taken this
original image here. This original color
image, and I've created a black and white
version of it in Lightroom. So what I've
done over here is I created black and
white by clicking black and white, and
then I played just a little bit with the
highlights, shadows, whites and blacks
and with the clarity to give it a little bit
more pop, and contrast. We're going to
take that, and of course we're gonna go
edit this in Photoshop. Let's do that
really quick, and we'll do the same thing
that we did before. We'll go in, we'll
take a copy of our background layer. I'm
gonna go into filters, into the Nik
collection. But this time, we're going to
be using silver effects Pro 2. Because
this is a black and white image, and
silver effects Pro 2 is specifically for
black and white images, and again I did
all of my homework in advance, and I have
created a custom preset for Polo, and it
is called 'Polo Gritty', and so this is way
over the top, but I loved it. So what I've
done here is I've made some global
adjustments, taking the mid-tones up just
a little bit. Bumping up the contrast
really bumping up the structure, that's
giving us all of this really, really fine,
control over the hair, and his beard,
making it look a little bit whiter than
it actually is.
Sorry Polo and then that's pretty much
all I'm doing here. The other thing that
I have done, it's probably the most
important is, I've changed the film types
I'm using an Agfa APX 400, that's adding
some of this grain to make it look more
like a 1970's photo, that was shot on film
and that's it! So I'm gonna click OK jump
back into Photoshop, and then we're gonna
add one last touch, and the last touch is
as you guess... we're gonna copy this,
we're gonna rename it to a High Pass filter
HPF, and we're gonna do my favorite other
High Pass Filter. Here it is, and again,
we're gonna really go over the top with
this. This is at 2 pixels, you can play
with this on your own images to see
exactly what works best. We need to
change the blending mode to overlay, and
wow this is crazy. So let's go in here, at
100% zoom in to Polo's eyes, and we'll
go back in time, and see exactly what
this looks like. This is the
black-and-white image, straight out of
Lightroom. This is what we did in Silver
Effects Pro, and that's what the high
pass filter it's over sharpened, but
that's ok! That's what we want for this
really grungy image. Now that we're done
editing this image. We're gonna do the
same thing for all the other images, and
then I'll show you the results.
Thank you so much for helping me out.
Thank you for joining us, make sure you
follow Polo on his website.
We have all the links in the
description of this video.
So you can see his travels around the
world and has cool custom
motorcycles and all that really awesome
stuff, to make his beard so Awesome.. so
make sure you check that out.
Thanks again for joining us, don't forget to
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free. Thanks again and I will see you
next time.