A couple of weeks ago, Mark Forman posted a new photoessay at his site that feature gritty, urban type post processing. Quite a few people are interested in this type of look, so I decided to create a tutorial that outlines the steps you can take to achieve a similar result.
Starting with our RAW file, we import it into Lightroom or Photoshop. Both use the same RAW processing engine and have the same controls. My screenshot below is from Lightroom, but you can use the same settings in Adobe Camera RAW in Photoshop. I always recommend shooting RAW but for those who insist on throwing away image data and shooting JPG, you can apply the same settings on your files.
The first step is to adjust the Recovery, Fill Light, Contrast, Clarity and Vibrance to +100.
Then, drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left (-100) and slowly ease it back until the color starts to appear. In this case, that was -76. Next, adjust the Blacks to balance the photo – setting the Fill Light to +100 will make it look washed out. Finally, adjust the Exposure slider if necessary and add a vignette in the vignette panel to darken the edges.
You may find that it makes peoples skin appear overly sharp – if that’s the case, you may want to soften the skin. Open the image in Photoshop, hit CTRL/CMD – J to duplicate the layer, apply a Gaussian blur of 20 (Filter>Blur>Gaussian) and lower the opacity to around 50%. Click the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, get the Brush tool, choose a soft-edged brush, and then paint over the skin, while avoiding the eyes, eyebrows, lips, teeth, nostrils, hair—-these are details areas you want to keep sharp.
Here are a couple more examples. At the end of the post, there’s a Lightroom Develop preset that’ll apply the basic settings with a single click. Feel free to download it and use it if you are a Lightroom user. To install, simply open Lightroom and go to the Develop module. In the Presets panel, right click and choose Import to import the preset.
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Craig Ferguson Images | Cultural Photography. One of the key aspects of life that we humans identify with is culture. We label people, places and events according to our ideas of what they are, ranging from the broader scale defined by tradition and place down to the small scale subcultures and tribes. Craig Ferguson Images is consistantly creating new visions in the field of cultural photography. From traditional festives and customs to modern, urban subcultures, Craig Ferguson Images is in touch with the changing world. From our base in Taipei, Taiwan we are perfectly positioned at the crossroads of the ancient and the modern.
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Craig excellent tutorial and examples. I'm honored to have been mentioned here.
Thanks Mark. You've been posting some good shots lately that have inspired me.
This is fun, I often do some similar kind of things. I also get some interesting results totally desaturating some images but I usually leave the color in too. The photos here are top-notch.
Now I'll have to head over and check out Mark's stuff!
Thanks for taking the time to put this together Craig, good stuff.
Thanks. I find that this only works for certain images – and then it works well. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground – it either looks great or terrible.
Cool. I like it. I'll try it soon!
I'll be looking out for your results.
Great tutorial Craig! I'll try this out on a few pics, if the results turn out nice I'll post them!
Can't wait to see them. Thanks Todd.
i don't own photoshop.
so, how to get shots that look like that from the camera itself – how is that done?
Good question. You might be able to do it by editing the "picture style" (Canon's term for in-camera JPG setting, not sure what Nikon's is). The software that came with your camera should allow you to edit these or create custom ones.
However I really wouldn't recommend it. Not all photos work with this style, and if you set it in-camera, if it's the wrong kind of subject, lighting etc, you'll just end up with a mess. Better would be to download something like The Gimp http://www.gimp.org/ that is a free image editor that does a lot of the same things as Photoshop.
[...] Daily Photo , Photography Tags: Lightroom Experimented with a few pictures on Lightroom using Craig Ferguson’s Gritty Urban Photography tutorial as a guide. The most interesting result I came up with was not from a picture of an [...]
oh cool this is awesome! thanks for the tips!
Jessica thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Hope these tips were helpful.
i'm not really into image manipulation. i have Gimp but i only use it to resize photos. in the past the only photos that i retouched were model photos that i did quite some time ago. i kinda get pissed when i see people fawning over a photoshopped "photograph" that is scientifically impossible to actually have been photographed, with all the fake colors and levels of contrast. it becomes more of who is the better computer operator rather than who is the best photographer. it's my opinion that photography contests should prohibit photoshopping in order to level the field to photographic skills only. photoshop skills just don't impress me. it's all fake and misleading, and little to do with actual photography, IMO. it's not comparable to real darkroom work either.
btw, i shoot jpeg because they look better IMO. when i shot RAW and processed them using Digikam, the photos looked flat and lifeless. the in-camera processing is much more useful and eye pleasing, IMO.
RAW vs JPG is becoming like Ford/Chev, Coke/Pepsi, PC/Mac etc. The best analogy I've heard is that RAW is unprocessed slide film, JPG is a minilab print of negative film. With RAW, you have to do the processing yourself, much like a wet darkroom, whereas with JPG someone in a factory in Japan has decided ahead of time what the processing will be. Also, the RAW editor is important – you really have to use either the camera manufacturers software, Adobe Camera RAW (in Lightroom and Photoshop) or Capture One. The rest just don't cut it.
The images I've posted here would all be achievable with film, the right lighting, and a lot of dodging, burning, contrast masking and selective sharpening in a wet darkroom. I agree that there's a lot of fake looking stuff out there but there was a lot of fake stuff in the pre-digital days too. Even then, photo contests were often more about who was the best printer rather than photographer – see if you can find any of Ansel Adams unmanipulated prints (or versions of online). They look radically different than the finished products.
"whereas with JPG someone in a factory in Japan has decided ahead of time what the processing will be" -yes, the Japanese Photo Experts Group, a body of people uniquely qualified to make that judgment. at least it's a standard. RAW is different for every camera.
that being aside, i'm proud to say that any photo that i've taken that's been used in a textbook, website (like wikipedia) etc., has been a jpeg that was unretouched by post processing. just think of all the disc space i've saved! lol
It's actually Joint Photographic Experts Group and there are at least 7 different flavors. Each camera maker has their own definition of RAW but DNG is something of a standard that's available for anyone to use no matter what camera they use.
All JPGs are post processed. They're just done in-camera. But they are still post-processed data. Every photo you've used anywhere has undergone that processing. There's no real difference between setting the saturation (for example) higher in camera for JPG or shooting RAW and doing it later, except one of them you have control over and the other you don't.
To put it in music terms, it's like the difference between a drummer (RAW) and a drum machine (JPG).
yeah i seem to remember it is "joint" but for some reason i was thinking it was "Japanese!"
not to beat the issue to death, but the main reason why i don't shoot RAW is time. you can't use RAW for anything directly. you can't send someone a RAW file, or upload a RAW image to flickr or use it on a blog. every RAW file must be personally manipulated by computer to turn it into a format that can be used. i just don't have that kind of time to futz around with the hundreds of shots that i take. since i don't crop photos or manipulate them in PS or Gimp, i bracket shots and i take several shots with different compositions using the zoom lens. i've settled on a set of camera settings that process the data into JPG files that i like and i don't have to do any post processing to get what i want. so for me, shooting RAW is a waste of time and storage space since i don't need RAW files for anything in particular. but of course i have shot RAW when necessary. it's just not necessary very often. thanks Craig.
That's cool. If you find it necessary to shoot RAW at any time, you can also set your RAW editor to automatically convert to the same JPG settings you have in-camera so it doesn't really take any extra time.
I'm off to give this a try. Excellent tutorial. I've only started using Lightroom. Another application to conquer…
I'll agree with you about RAW. I used to shoot JPEG (because I only had a 1g CF card). My processed RAW images look far better, for both color and sharpness, then my JPGs ever did. Open a RAW and a JPEG side by side (shoot both of the same subject) and compare on screen. I was utterly surprised.
I'll be looking out for your results. Thanks Stevo.
Great tips, Craig. I don't use Photoshop at all, but since I've got some extra time on my hands I figure it's about time I give it a try. I'm in the market for a new lens this month and then I'm going to get down to business.
Glad you like the tips Carrie. Photoshop is a lot of fun to play with, but it's very easy to go too far. If you need any lens advice, feel free to ask.
I wanted to add: Alien Skin's Exposure 2 plug-ins for Photoshop also do a great job in making street photos "down and dirty."
Good to know Stevo. I haven't really tested out any of the Alien Skin plug ins. I got the Nik collection a couple of years ago and use that a fair bit, and have just recently installed On One's plug-ins, mainly for their masking tools.