LeggNets Digital Capture

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Muted Color


One effect that I use occasionally on portraits is Muted Color. This treatment can help to give an antique feel to the image similar to sepia-tone while still retaining color.

The young couple in today's image wanted an old-fashioned look to their engagement photos. Their initial thought was to go with black & white or sepia-tone. However, upon seeing the muted color version it immediately became their favorite.

There are several methods available to create this look. The method I use is simple and straightforward. I process the original RAW image in three ways: color, sepia-tone and cross-processed (I use Linge's Photoshop Actions for the sepia and cross-processed effect). I then create a Photoshop layer of each version of the file. Once I have the three layers, I use the color layer as my base and blend the other two layers over it, adjusting the transparency until I get my desired result.

If you have a process you use to create a similar effect, please share it.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens - 1/200 second, f/4, ISO 100

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2 Comments:

Blogger Ivan Makarov said...

Not being a big fan of this look myself, here is what I do when I do decide to do it.

Duplicate original layer twice. Click on the middle layer, desaturate it (CMD+Shift+U), click on the top layer and switch blending mode to 'soft light' or 'overlay', and finish off by playing with opacities of the both layers.

March 06, 2008  
Blogger The Boat said...

Awesome! How did you process them? eg. base color, middle one cross processed and top one sepia? Always using "normal" as blending mode?

Cool work, I love this style!

March 08, 2008  

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