High Contrast Black & White
Sometimes when you convert an image to black and white it can look a little flat. So to improve it, you would add an adjustment layer to increase the contrast. The bad news is that this usually clips the shadows and highlights – especially for wedding photos of black tuxedos and white dresses. You can try using the curves tool to increase the contrast but you might get flat looking spots that make the image look even worse. The good news is that you can fix this and it’s easier than tinkering with the curves tool.
Here’s how to do it. First, open a black and white photo. You can use any tool you like to increase the contrast but to keep things simple, we’re just going to use the Brightness/Contrast adjustment (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast). When adjusting the contrast, pay attention to the midtones and don’t worry about the clipping that occurs in the shadows and highlights. For our photo, we’re increasing the contrast to its maximum setting of 100. This looks great in the midtones but the shadows in the tuxedo and highlights in the dress gets clipped.
To fix this, we can use the blend if layer styles. This feature is extremely useful for professional photographers because they let you adjust where the layer is visible. To access it, right-click on the layer then choose Blending Options. In the blend if options, hold the alt key and drag the black input slider towards the right to restore the details in the shadows. Next, hold the alt key and drag the white input slider towards the left to restore the details in the highlights.
Use this technique any time you need to restore clipped shadows or highlights. It’s easier than using a layer mask and it’ll save you a lot of time.
Film Look
Finally, you’ll learn how to create this film look that’s popular with wedding photographers. It gives your photos a low-contrast effect and can make nearly all your photos look better. Many people pay a lot of money to buy Lightroom presets but we’ll show you how to make it yourself. This technique uses just one curves layer and you can use the same technique in Adobe Lightroom to create your own presets. You should have some knowledge about how curves work but we’ll show you it step-by-step so that you can understand what we’re doing.
30 responses to “3 Photo Effects for Wedding Photographers”
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Beautiful video. Thank you.
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Very useful tips! Thanks for sharing. :)
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I am able to take on any Photoshop challenge with stunning result. My skills include but are not limited to skin retouching, facial enhancements, acne and blemish removal, posture correction, background extraction or replacement, adding or subtracting elements from photos, eye color correction and flash glare wedding album corrected, don’t hesitate to buy my gigs and leave your worries behind. Though I’ve worked on some rather challenging projects over time, not once have I had one unsatisfied customer.
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I like to create any design in Photoshop. For that’s reason this tutorial is very interesting to me.Wonderful tutorial..Thanks for sharing.
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I have see all your photo for marriege.Insted of me,I have created one website for photoshop i dont know exactly what is sentences to write for home page.these all sentence become to be an attractive.so pls help me.
Thanks&Recrds
vilas alagi -
The first image looks very nice with the toning. It’s like a recipe to get all those curves to create the right effect.
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Hey people,is it possible to manipulate a picture with a phone or it just needs computor ?
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I downloaded the couple running in the field (before and after photo). Imported into lightroom. The FILM LOOK (aka Raised black) are a lot more aggressive that mentioned in tutorial.
But – what I really want to know is what settings were used to clear out details in the sky, but that didn’t effect the dress? (PS:I am using lightroom to accomplish this, not photoshop) -
thank you :)
means a lot -
Hello, thank you for posting these tutorials, this is just what I was looking for to help make my wedding photos look unique.
Regards
Rob -
Wow the song is very cool.
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This blog post is really a good information piece for people who are not aware about Photoshop affects of photos and how a good technical knowledge can help you out in creating stunning photographs for your clients.
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I can say this is a good read. This article is really helpful especially to those who are interested in photography. I like how he explained everything and even created a screenshot for the techniques that he gave. Wedding photos will surely look great with the help of this tutorial. Great job!
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cám ơn rất nhiều !
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Some great tips and advice- thank you.
I love black & white photos as do my clients but I must admit I have not tried the split-toning yet. May have to give it a try.
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Well… I liked the “before” images in all examples.
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wery nice tutorial.
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“This can even make bland photos look memorable” …
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Why not just take better photos and throw out the bland ones? I mean, this is part of being a better photographer, not relying on filters/effects to “make” your photo. Start with a good photo, then apply your interesting effects. Using this stuff on bland photos is like spray painting a pile of crap. It is still crap.No offense intended, I just think there is more to a photo than the effects. I used to rely on effects almost exclusively. I did not become a better photographer until I started paying attention to the more important things.
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You are taking it out of context by extending the speakers meaning and applying your own ideology to it.
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I agree. Too many people out there are buying/selling actions and lightroom presets!!!!!
I love Photoshop, but I do my best to get everything perfect in camera before I go into Photoshop…especially with wedding photography. It should be editorial style, not instagram style.
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Hi,
what’s the opening song title of the video? thanks. -
A great read and some lovely pictures! I love black and white photography and have just launched a website solely for black and white images. If you get chance I would be interested to see what you think. Thanks for your time. Andrew
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VSCO use camera profiles and do not work with jpg photo. $119 too…. So try to make all in curves and no camera profiles.
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THAT GOOD …………
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Thank you very much
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How do you make effects like this?
http://jamiesondean.com/jennifer-martin-wedding-photography-toronto/-
He uses lens filters effects with lightroom
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VSCO
Google it up
Nuff said -
Increase noise
Do the contrast thing with the curves they teach you in the video
I tried it and it looks very close
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good video
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