That Old World Feeling

Jim Chamberlin

One of my passions is to travel. Teaching Photoshop has allowed me to visit many places around the world. I will usually add a few days onto my schedule, allowing time to photograph. This brings me to this article on travel photography. How many times have you been on a trip and taken photographs that just don’t have same emotion that you remember when you were there, taking them? You know what I mean, you were at that incredible little village, it’s late afternoon approaching sunset, everything is in place and snap – you press the cameras shutter. When you get home the image just doesn’t live up to the impact you felt when you were there. Maybe it was a sense of place, the emotions of being in a beautiful new surrounding. This is where those great “Plug In” filters come in handy. My challenge, when I get home from my trips is to create images that convey all the feelings and emotion I experienced while I was there. My favorite tool is Photoshop of course but the secret ingredient is NIK Color Effects Pro V.2.0. from NIK Multimedia. This set of about 75 filters, is about the best I have ever used. Within this collection are three filters that I use regularly in my travel photography. In combination with Photoshop’s Blending Mode, these three filters give my images an “Old World” Mediterranean style. Soft, warm, grainy, a nice “Mediterranean Old World” look. OK enough already, the filters are “Sunshine”, “Monday Morning” and “Old Photo". Jim Chamberlin photo 1

Here’s the formula. I shoot with the Nikon D2X in RAW mode, therefore the first thing I do is open the image with Photoshop’s Camera RAW plug in.

1. I correct any Colour Temperature, Exposure, Shadow & Brightness settings as needed, keeping in 16 bit under the “Show Workflow" options.

2. I enlarge the image with the “Size” option, close to myfinal working size (before any cropping). Enlarging the file here in the Camera RAW plug in, has better algorithms than re-sizing with “Image Size” – so I’m told.

3. Apply the changes and now you are into the regular part of Photoshop. Zoom into the image to “Print Size“ plus one or two clicks (Command Plus). This brings the image to size, as it will appear in print plus a click or two closer. Look for any dust, scratches or junk that needs removal. If you zoom in too close, you could see some weird stuff but it will probably never show up in print. Keep your file cleanup reasonable. This is where I also remove the 20th century junk I don’t want to see in my period images, stuff like power lines, satellite dishes, quartz lights on the side of buildings. You get the picture.

4. I have a collection of skies and clouds that I use to add interest to photographs that have a boring white sky. The weather doesn’t always cooperate when traveling. My collection of stock images includes skies from different times of the day, cloud patterns and perspectives (foreground and background). This gives me the option to choose a sky that fits the lighting and perspective of the target image.

Jim Chamberlin
5. I often times use the Dodge and Burn tool to reshape the light patterns in the image by darkening shadow areas, adding highlights to direct the flow of the image. 6. Remember to save the file. Give it a name that means something to you about the image. Now duplicate the background layer three times. Name the layer just above Background “Sunshine”, the next layer name “Monday Morning” and the top layer “Old Photo”.

7. From your Filter menu go to NIK Color Effects Pro and apply the appropriate filter to each layer. There are various settings within each filter. Move the sliders around, back and forth to the extremes. Find a setting that appeals to you. There is no right or wrong here. Even though I have set up this formula of three filters, there is plenty of room to add your own personality to the mix. This is the nice thing about digital tools. You can take another person’s idea, add your own flavor to it and come up with your own taste.

8. After you apply the filters, adjust the blending mode on the layers Monday Morning and Sunshine to Luminosity. Set Old Photo to screen mode. 9. Set the Opacity sliders to taste by adjusting to get a blend that fits your mood. The Old Photo layer will be adjusted down very low minimizing its effect. On some images I might even turn off the Old Photo layer.

10. Save the file with all the layers and save another version with the layers flattened. On the flattened layer I add Curves and levels adjustment layers to make any tone and colour adjustments. I make it a habit not to colour correct too much before the creative filters are applied. As described above I do a little global correction in the camera RAW plug-in but only to a visually clean state on a balanced monitor. The filters will alter colour therefore I save critical colour and tone for the end of the process.

11. Now it’s time to make my first test print and modify the adjustment layers as needed. I can increase the mood by painting in a little more red or yellow correction into areas where it helps.

12. Print your image on a nice off-white textured watercolour paper. My favorite art papers are
Hahnemühle German Etching and Arches Infinity. I print with the Epson 10000 series printers with pigment inks.

13. This is where I make my final cropping decisions. I decide on the final image size and aspect ratio. I liked the first crop I made giving room to the foreground and sky areas but I decided I also wanted a square crop – probably from my 35 years of shooting with a Hasselblad. Rather than crop again as I wanted to keep everything that was there, I enlarged the canvas size and stretched the image with Free Transform on the horizontal axis. Stretching an image can add that extra touch of impact.

14. At this point I will evaluate the image for sharpness and apply un-sharp mask as needed.

15. Remember good photography is still a must – proper lens choice, angle of view, exposure and lighting. When travelling you can’t always control the lighting. I don’t have all day to wait around for the best lighting situation. Make the best of what is available and keep an eye on what you can do later to improve the situation.

16. I’m always on the lookout for flowers, trees and natural formations that are native to the area. If I need to fill in any blank areas I like to use stuff that is in keeping.

Put an edge on the image if you like, but be careful. Edge effects are so overused nowadays they’re starting to look tacky. I use a simple soft edge or a good old fashioned straight sharp edge, what a concept. Mood and Elegance, this is what you are after. The filtering should enhance the overall look of the image without shouting “Photoshop” or “Special Effects”.

These combinations of filters give a nice warm, Old World feeling to my images. There’s grainy, almost sepia warm coloring, still maintaining your cool colour tones.

blending modes and layer transparency. I can apply the effects automatically in a couple minutes allowing me to make adjustments to Opacity to suite my taste.

feeling to studio or environmental work. Check out the headline image –there I took an ordinary senior portrait (below) and transformed it into something more with the same filter set.

Jim Chamberlin

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