Photo editing in the style of Dave Hill. dave hill style photo editing dave hill style photo editing

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 do not be sad - now I will tell you about him and his unusual photos. "Some photographer, some Dave Hill, so he surrendered to us," you say. But!

The pictures he takes are simply amazing. Like pictures - on these unusual photos a huge amount of time and effort was spent, both by Dave Hill himself, and by his team and 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 do not process photos at all, believing that beauty should be natural. On this topic, you can argue a lot and for a long time.

By the way, the Internet is full of tutorials that tell you how to do it. unusual photos in a similar style. But in pictures Dave Hill"and the main thing is not processing, in my humble opinion, but the process of shooting itself.

Here are some examples with pictures of Dave and videos of how they were taken.

Here, respectively, the video to 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 won fame not only in the world wide web, but also in photography.

For this unusual photo I had to cut into pieces an already broken car. From which, in fact, only the upper part was needed.

In this Photoshop tutorial, Kuzmichev Alexey will tell you about processing photos in the style of Dave Hill. You have probably already seen this effect on the Internet. It is achieved quite simply. You can see the final result of processing in the screenshot below.

We open the photo.

Duplicate the background layer through 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 “Bright light” (Vivid Light).

The photo at this stage should be much more contrast.

Merge two layers into one by pressing 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” (Color) and reduce the “Opacity” to 40-50%.

The next step again merge all the layers through "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" (Filter -> Noise -> Add noise). Add "Effect" 3%, "Distribution" - uniform and check "Monochrome".

Lower this layer's "Opacity" to 20-30%.

Next, again create a copy of all our layers through "Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E" and add a little sharpness to the photo. This will be the final touch. Go to "Filter -> Sharpness -> Contour sharpness" (Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask). We set the settings:

The effect is about 60%;
Radius 10 pixels;
Isohelium 0.

There is the concept of "The Dave Hill Look". This can be translated into Russian as "Dave Hill's Style" or "Dave Hill's View". Naturally, this translation is free and does not fully describe the whole essence of the concept.

There is a wonderful English-language photography 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 make something so that everyone exclaims“ Wow! ”. This could well be attributed to Dave Hill.

Dave Hill is a cult figure among professional photographers. The dynamics of his photographs coming off the films. This is expressed in the fullness of the frame with the plot and meaning. The photographer also stands out for his professional framing skills. Photoshop enthusiasts and professionals alike know Dave Hill as a professional retoucher and post-processor. It was mainly thanks to these skills that the photographer became famous. All these qualities of images and approach to implementation are called "The Dave Hill Look".

Based on all of the above, it can be noted that this master of photography has a lot to learn.

Naturally, after reading a review about the master’s technique, it will not be possible to reach his heights, but this material will help start moving in the right direction, giving an idea of new interesting principles for processing photographs and framing.

As already mentioned, Hill's stories are filled with action, diverse events and somewhat aggressive environments. Dave's followers began to apply these effects to portraits, as well as urban and natural landscapes. That's why we can say that "Dave Hill Style" had an effect. which anyone can use in their photo processing.

So, let's start "Processing photos of children in the style of Dave Hill."

Let's start by opening the image in Photoshop. It is best to choose a dynamic shot that shows 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 merge the layers. This manipulation is most quickly carried out using a keyboard shortcut. Ctrl+Shift+E). After that, we create a copy of the layer again and again apply the HighPass filter, but this time with a larger radius. Set the value to about -5-8.

Reduce the layer's Opacity to 50% and change the Blend Mode to Color.

Flatten the layers again using the keyboard shortcut and create a copy of the layer again. Apply the Gaussian Blur filter to the copy with a radius of 8-10 pixels:

Again set the layer's opacity to 50-70%. If some details are suddenly too blurry and should have been kept 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, flatten the layers and create a copy. This time apply the "Unsharp Mask" filter. Set the following parameters: Effect 100, Radius 30, Isohelium 0.

See what happened as a result.

Now let's do the same work, only with the landscape. We act according to 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, it was said about processing methods from two authors. Now we will look at the principle of post-processing 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 the maximum, and with it the Fill Light, Clarity and Vibrancy. Next, you need to raise the Brightness to a value of +50, and the Contrast to +25. Next, you need to remove the Saturation of the colors to about -80. As you can see, in the first version, the essence of 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 an "Effect" value of 100, but you are not required to adhere to strict rules. Use whatever value works best for your work.

Then, open the image in Photoshop and make a copy of the layer. Next, apply a "Gaussian Blur" in which we specify a radius of about 20 pixels.

Lower the opacity and apply a mask if needed.

Most likely, you have already noticed that the processing principle is almost the same, and the results do not differ significantly.

What should be taken away from this article?

It is impossible to become a master by reading articles and mastering new methods. It takes practice and a sense of confidence in what you are doing.
With all this, studying the history of art and learning new methods, you can develop simultaneously in different directions and combine styles, which can lead to incredible results.
It is worth realizing that the same result can be achieved in different ways. Remember, if you are not happy with the result, try to look at everything from the other side.

You can take a look at another shot that was processed in the two ways mentioned above.

This photo was edited in Photoshop:

And this picture was first corrected in Camera RAW, and then finalized with Photoshop.

I already wrote about a photographer by the name once in my blog. I also mentioned his signature post-production style called "The Dave Hill Look". Today you will learn how to make this on any of your photos using the Photoshop graphics editor and simple manipulations. So let's get started.

1) First you need to open the photo that you want to make it look like 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 your keyboard shortcuts and effect names may differ.

1) Then you need to create a duplicate layer of your image. Press "Ctrl J" or "Duplicate Layer". To the resulting layer, you need to apply the High Pass filter (Filter - Other -High Pass) by setting the "radius" value to 4.0.

3) After that, change the overlays 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 #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's opacity to 40%.

5) Combining 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, you need 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 with 50% 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.

You should end up with a Dave Hill style photo!

So freely I translated the established name - "The Dave Hill Look". I confess that, perhaps, this translation is incorrect - whether in essence the phenomenon, whether stylistically - offer your own version! (Maybe "Dave Hill Style"?)

In one English-language photography magazine there is a column - "How Wow". Agree, in English it sounds simple, beautiful, elegant, and, what is very important, 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 about the same here.

Dave Hill is a cult figure in certain circles. His photographic works can be compared with a film in terms of the dynamics of the plot, the fullness of the semantic content, and the realization of the idea. The virtuoso mastery of light in the frame is also very important. To us, photoshoppers, he is especially close and valuable rather as a retoucher and master of post-processing, thanks to which, basically, his pictures became famous. That's all together and hidden behind one term - "The Dave Hill Look". I hope now you will understand my difficulties and forgive me the liberty of translation?

I will recommend two links to those who are interested - the site of our today's guest and a film that clearly shows how the filming process actually takes place - preparing the model, setting the light, and options for shots.

From what you have already read, seen and heard, I hope you have already concluded that this person, who is sometimes called even 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 with the Master, but at least we will get a magic pendle 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 free-dotted version of the translation of which I want to offer to your favorable attention.

As you can see, Dave's stories are active, powerful, even somewhat aggressive. However, his followers extended the effect to the portrait, including the portrait of a child, and to the urban landscape, and to nature photography. Thus, "Vision (Style?) 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.

Let's open our image. As you can see, I chose a dynamic child portrait. Let's see how it will look in the new light:

Copy 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 blend mode to Bright light. Thus, we achieve an increase in sharpness and at the same time raise the contrast of the image:

Flattening Layers (I sincerely hope you continue to master the art of using Photoshop keyboard shortcuts - 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:

… half, or a little more, reduce the opacity of the layer and change the layer's blending mode to "Color".

We reduce the layers (I know that you have already memorized, this is me for myself - Ctrl+Shift+E). Copy the layer again (silently silently), and blur the copy with the Gaussian Blur filter with a fairly large radius - 8-10 pixels:

Significantly (half, or even more) reduce the opacity of the layer. If there are details in the picture that you consider necessary to keep sharp - eyes, hair, jewelry, nose, lips - apply a black mask (hold down alt), and draw on it with a white soft brush of the desired diameter.

Once again, we reduce the layers, copy them again to a new layer, and apply the “Unsharp Mask” filter to the copy of the layer with the following impressive parameters:

Here's what happened in the end. Well, how do you like the effect?

You can already prepare rotten palm tomatoes for applause, but! Remember, at the very beginning of the article, I offered to thank the two authors? Well, that was just the first one. Scott Kelby came up with another version for LightRoom, which I adapted for the Camera Raw plugin, and I'm happy to present it to you, suddenly it will be useful to someone?

If it’s hard to see in the picture, I’ll write what Scott suggests doing: raise Exposure Compensation, Fill Light, Sharpness and Vibrance to the limit, raise 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 increased and the colors were removed. But that is not all:

On the tab "Effects" you need to add a vignette. The author uses a portrait on a black background as an illustration of his lesson, and suggests extreme values of 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 will be able to check you.

Lower the opacity, add a mask if necessary:

As you can see, the principles are the same, the options differ only in details, but the finished results differ markedly.

Let's summarize briefly.

Just using some exact (and even approximate) values of the engines from an unknown by whom and unknown how translated by an unknown article for image correction, we will never become Masters.
Nevertheless, we got some idea about an interesting person and his contribution to art.
And we also got a pendel 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. Good luck with your pictures!