So I freely translated the established name - “The Dave Hill Look”. I confess that perhaps this translation is incorrect - either in essence of the phenomenon or stylistically - suggest your own version! (Maybe "Dave Hill Style"?)
One English-language photography magazine has a section called “How Wow.” Agree, in English it sounds simple, beautiful, elegant, and, what is very important, it immediately reflects the essence. In Russian, no matter how you translate it, it will be clumsy: “How to make it so that when a person sees this, he exclaims: “Wow!” That's pretty much the same here.
Dave Hill is a cult figure in certain circles. His photographic works can be compared to a film in terms of the dynamics of the plot, the fullness of semantic content, and the implementation of the plan. Masterly control of light in the frame is also very important. To us, Photoshop artists, he is especially close and valuable as a retoucher and a master of post-processing, thanks to which, basically, his photographs became famous. All this together is hidden behind one term - “The Dave Hill Look”. I hope that now you will understand my difficulties and forgive me the liberty of translation?
For those interested, I will recommend two links - the website of our guest today and a film that clearly shows how the filming process actually takes place - preparing the model, installing the light, and options for shots.
From what you have already read, seen and heard, I hope you have already concluded that this man, who is sometimes even called a photo director, has a lot to learn.
It is clear that after one review lesson we will not be able to stand on the same level as the Master, but at least we will get a magical kick-off in the direction of movement.
At the same time, we will once again take the opportunity to thank Nick Wheeler and Steve Kelby for the post-processing lessons provided, the freely dotted version of the translation of which I want to offer to your favorable attention.
As you noticed, Dave's plots are active, powerful, even somewhat aggressive. However, his followers extended the effect to portraits, including children’s, to cityscapes, and to nature photography. Thus, “The Vision (Style?) of Dave Hill” is no longer so much a phenomenon as a kind of processing effect that each author can apply to those works that he finds interesting.
So.
Open our image. As you can see, I chose a dynamic children's portrait. Let's see how it will look in a new light:
Copy the layer ( Ctrl+J), and apply a HighPass filter to this copy of the layer ( Filter - Others - Color Contrast) (remember? - ) with a radius of 3-4 pixels:
and change the blending mode to Bright light. Thus, we achieve increased sharpness and at the same time raise the contrast of the image:
Flatten Layers (I sincerely hope you continue to hone the art of using Photoshop hotkeys - Ctrl + Shift + E), copy the layer again, and again apply the HighPass filter to the copy, this time with a slightly larger radius - 5-8 pixels:
...reduce the opacity of the layer by half, or a little more, and change the layer’s blending mode to “Color.”
We bring together the layers (I know that you have already remembered, this is me for myself - Ctrl + Shift + E). Again, copy the layer (keep silent), and blur the copy with the “Gaussian Blur” filter with a fairly large radius - 8-10 pixels:
Significantly (by half, or even more) reduce the opacity of the layer. If there are details in the photo that you consider necessary to leave sharp - eyes, hair, jewelry, nose, lips - apply a black mask (holding Alt), and paint on it with a white soft brush of the required diameter.
Once again, we flatten the layers, copy them again to a new layer, and apply the “Unsharp Mask” filter with the following impressive parameters to the copy of the layer:
This is what happened in the end. So, how do you like the effect?
You can already prepare your rotten tomatoes palms for applause, but! Remember at the very beginning of the article I suggested thanking the two authors? So, this was just the first one. Scott Kelby suggested another option for the LightRoom program, which I adapted for the Camera Raw plugin, and I’ll be happy to present it to you, in case someone finds it useful?
If it’s hard to see in the picture, I’ll write what Scott suggests doing: raise Exposure Compensation, Fill Light, Clarity and Vibrancy to the limit, greatly increase Brightness (up to +50), Contrast (up to +25), and greatly reduce Color Saturation (up to - 80). As a matter of fact, in the first version essentially the same thing was done, namely, the contrast was significantly raised and the colors were removed. But that's not all:
On the “Effects” tab you need to add a vignette. The author uses a portrait on a black background to illustrate his lesson, and suggests extreme values for the “Effect” slider - 100, but I decided not to listen to him. You are also free in your actions, because neither I nor Scott Kelby can check you.
Reduce the opacity and add a mask if necessary:
As you can see, the same principles are used, the options differ only in details, but the finished results are noticeably different.
Let's summarize briefly.
- Simply using some exact (and even approximate) values of engines from an unknown article translated by who knows who and who knows how for image correction, we will never become Masters.
- However, we did get some insight into an interesting man and his contributions to the arts.
- And we also got a specific direction in which we can move on the way to an interesting image.
- Even in two ways.
As always, I look forward to your comments. Happy shooting!
In this Photoshop lesson Alexey Kuzmichev will talk about processing photographs in the style of Dave Hill. You have most likely already seen this effect on the Internet. It is achieved quite simply. You can see the final result of processing in the screenshot below.
Open the photo.
Duplicate the background layer using the combination “Ctrl+J”.
After that, go to “Filter -> Other -> Color Contrast” (Filter -> Other -> High Pass).
Set the "Radius" to 3-4 pixels, depending on your photo. The larger the photo, the larger the radius should be.
Change the blending mode for this layer to “Vivid Light”.
The photo at this stage should become much more contrasting.
We combine two layers into one, to do this, press the key combination “Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E”. After that, again go to “Filter -> Other -> Color Contrast”, set the radius to 6 pixels.
Set the blending mode for this layer to “Color” and reduce the “Opacity” to 40-50%.
The next step is to merge all the layers again using “Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E”.
Select "Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur" (Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur) and blur the photo by 8-10 pixels. This step will add a little haze to the photo, which will make it more original.
The next step is to add a little noise (Filter -> Noise -> Add noise). Add "Effect" 3%, "Distribution" - uniform and check the "Monochrome" checkbox.
Lower the Opacity of this layer to 20-30%.
Next, again create a copy of all our layers using “Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E” and add a little sharpening to the photo. This will be the final touch. Go to “Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask”. Set the settings:
- The effect is approximately 60%;
- Radius 10 pixels;
- Isohelium 0.
There is a concept called “The Dave Hill Look”. This can be translated into Russian as “Dave Hill’s Style” or “Dave Hill’s Look.” Naturally, this translation is free and does not fully describe the essence of the concept.
There is a wonderful English-language photo magazine. It has a section called “How Wow”. In the English version, this phrase is beautiful and catchy, but if translated into Russian, it will turn out rather clumsily. Actually it will sound: “How to do something so that everyone exclaims “Wow!” This could very well be attributed to Dave Hill.
Dave Hill is a cult figure among professional photographers. Dynamics of his photographs and films. This is expressed in the frame being filled with plot and meaning. The photographer also stands out for his professional command of framing the shot. Photoshop enthusiasts and professionals will recognize Dave Hill as a professional retoucher and post-processor. It is mainly thanks to these skills that the photographer became famous. All these qualities of the images and the approach to implementation are called “The Dave Hill Look”.
Based on all of the above, it can be noted that there is a lot to learn from this master of photography.
Naturally, after reading a review about the master’s technique, it will not be possible to achieve his heights, but this material will help you start moving in the right direction, giving you an idea of new interesting principles of photo processing and framing.
As already mentioned, Hill's plots are filled with active action, diverse events and a somewhat aggressive environment. Dave's followers began to apply these effects to portraits, as well as city photography and natural landscapes. That is why we can say that “Dave Hill Style” was so effective. which anyone can use in their photo processing.
So, let's begin "Processing Children's Photos in the Style of Dave Hill."
We start by opening the image in Photoshop. It is best to choose a dynamic photo that demonstrates some kind of action. Now let's see how it will look after processing.
Create a copy of the layer ( Ctrl+J), and apply the HighPass filter ( Filter - Others - Color Contrast).
Let's flatten the layers. The fastest way to do this is to use a keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + E). After that, create a copy of the layer again and again apply the HighPass filter, but this time with a larger radius. Set the value to approximately - 5-8.
Reduce the layer opacity to 50% and change the blending mode to “Color”.
We flatten the layers again using the keyboard shortcut and again create a copy of the layer. Apply the “Gaussian Blur” filter to the copy with a radius of 8-10 pixels:
Again set the layer opacity to 50-70%. If some details suddenly turn out to be too blurry and should have been left sharp (eyes, nose, lips...), simply apply a mask to the blur layer and paint over it with a black brush with soft edges.
Once again we bring together the layers and create a copy. This time we apply the “Unsharp Mask” filter. Set the following parameters: Effect 100, Radius 30, Isohelium 0.
Look what happened as a result.
Now let's do the same work, only with the landscape. We follow the same algorithm.
And so, we figured out how to achieve good results in Photoshop, but not everyone uses this program for photo processing. At the beginning of the article, processing methods from two authors were discussed. Now we'll look at the post-processing principle from Scott Kelby, who suggested an option for LightRoom. However, we will do all the work in the Camera Raw plugin module.
So, Scott suggests raising the Exposure Compensation to maximum, and with it the Fill Light, Clarity and Vibrancy. Next you need to raise the Brightness to +50, and the Contrast to +25. Next, you need to reduce the Color Saturation to about -80. As you may have noticed, in the first version the essence of the processing was the same: we greatly increased the contrast and removed the colors. That's not all.
Go to the “Effects” tab. There you need to add a vignette. It is suggested to use Effect values of 100, but you don't have to adhere to strict rules. Use whatever value suits your work best.
Then, open the image in Photoshop and create a copy of the layer. Next, apply “Gaussian Blur” in which we specify a radius of about 20 pixels.
Reduce the transparency and, if necessary, apply a mask.
Most likely, you have already noticed that the processing principle is almost the same, and the results do not differ significantly.
What should you take away from this article?
- It is impossible to become a master by reading articles and mastering new methods. This requires practice and a sense of confidence in what you are doing.
- With all this, by studying the history of art and learning new methods, you can simultaneously develop in different directions and combine styles, which can lead to incredible results.
- It is worth realizing that one result can be achieved in different ways. Remember, if you are not happy with the result, try to look at everything from a different perspective.
You can take a look at another picture, which was processed using the two methods mentioned above.
This photo was processed in Photoshop:
And this picture was first corrected in Camera RAW, and then finalized in Photoshop.
I already wrote about a photographer named once on my blog. I also mentioned his signature photo post-processing style called “The Dave Hill Look.” Today you will learn how to make one like this on any of your photographs using the Photoshop graphic editor and simple manipulations. So let's get started.
1) First you need to open the photo that you want to make similar to photos from Dave Hill. To do this, click “Open” or the key combination “Ctrl+O”. If you use Photoshop online - online photo editor for free, then the key combinations and names of effects may differ for you.
1) Then you need to create a duplicate layer of your photo. press "Ctrl J" or "duplicate layer". You need to apply a High Pass filter (Filter – Other -High Pass) to the resulting layer, setting the “radius” value to 4.0.
3)After that, change the overlay of our layer to Vivid Light, and then merge our layers into one by selecting both layers and pressing “merge layers” (Shift+Ctrl+e).
4) Repeat step No. 2: duplicate the layer and apply the High Pass filter, but with a “radius” value of 6.9. Then change the blending mode to “Color” and set the layer opacity to 40%.
5) Merging the layers again.
6) Once again, create a duplicate layer and apply the “Gaussian Blur” effect to it (Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur) with a “radius” value of 9.4.
7) At this stage it is necessary to remove too much blur. Add a layer mask (Layer – Layer Mask – Hide All). Take the Lasso (L button) and select the eyes. Invert the selection (Select - Inverse). Fill the mask 50% with gray (Edit – Fill) and merge the layers.
8) Now we need to add sharpness. To do this, apply the “Unsharp Mask” effect (Filter – Sharpen – Unsharp Mask) with the values “amount” = 100%, “radius” = 30.0, “threshold” = 0.
The result should be a Dave Hill style photo!
If you are in any way related to photography, then you have probably heard about such a wonderful photographer as Dave Hill. If not, then don’t be sad - now I’ll tell you about him and his unusual photos. “Some photographer, some Dave Hill, he surrendered to us,” you say. But!
The pictures he takes evoke simply amazing feelings. Like paintings - these unusual photos A huge amount of time and effort was spent, both by Dave Hill himself and his team and the models involved in the photographs.
You will now understand what I am talking about. The processing is so amazing that you look at the pictures as if they were works of art. Not every photographer can boast of such skills. Some people don’t process photos at all, believing that beauty should be natural. This topic can be debated for a long time.
By the way, the Internet is full of lessons that tell you how to do unusual photos in a similar style. But in pictures Dave Hill“But the main thing is not the processing, in my humble opinion, but the process of shooting itself.
Here are a few examples with Dave's photos and videos of how they were taken.
Here, accordingly, is the video for the photo above:
All of it unusual photos very stylish. They have a certain challenge, they have their own atmosphere, depth.
This creative photographer has already gained fame not only on the World Wide Web, but also in the art of photography.
For this unusual photo I had to cut the already broken car into pieces. Of which, in fact, only the upper part was needed.
