I often practice my new post techniques on old or unused shots just to see how effective they are.
I love the Low key Monochromatic style and It often seems to be a much sought after technique to create the "ugly-pretty" look.
So here is a very simple 5 step guide to create this look for your own Fashion or Beauty shots, from Raw to Finish in Under 5 minutes.
So with your Raw file (not jpeg) :
We open up
and look
to the right to the
basic settings.
For a Monochromatic
effect Vibrance and
Saturation must
be low or completely
off if you want Black & White
instead of Warm
shadow fills.
We want to bump up
the clarity a bit to add
a little more detail
perhaps where the tones
are missing.
Next we move onto adjusting the exposure and lighting quality. For a low key effect
it is essential to have low exposure which still retains detail and light form. But If you are starting from a fairly flat lit shot, like this one, then that is where Camera Raw comes into play to help jazz things up.
Now we start to see how sometimes adjusting the light in post can really add to the mood of the shot. Though there is still some little fixes which will enhance the over all look when we open up the image into photoshop.
Quite simply duplicate the layer twice and set the first layer to blend mode Screen, then the second to blend mode Soft light except lower the Opacity of that layer so that it isn't too contrasted.
Huzzah! the image now has some character.
Now for the final two stages to really add some more pizaz to your image.
Because her striking eyes were lost in the flat light and lack of tonality, my favorite tool for "highlighting" features such as the eyes is the Dodge tool, but make
sure to set it to "highlight"
and paint over the iris or selected feature(s)
Now I suppose this is more preference than anything, but to add a more vintage style
I usually love to use selective colour on black to play about with the shadows a little more.
Result: Low key monochrome feel bound to jazz up any old pretty portrait. :) enjoy.
Hope this tutorial has been helpful! please feel free to follow my blog and more of my work
Allanah.
