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How do I make my photos look like this?

I'm pretty good at Photoshop but I can't figure out for the life of me how people get their images like this. I can't tell if it's contrast or just highlights or something, but I really like the style of image. Here are a couple of examples:

 

landscape-1443038243-roa100115fea-shelby-13.jpg

775e8cdf9a665f1c6251d76c267cc58b.jpg

 

Compared to just a regular old photo:

2015-subaru_wrx_sti.jpg

 

Any ideas/guides that can help me achieve this?

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It is just tone mapping with too much local contrast and micro detail.

Try the Photoshop tone mapper. 

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Filters can do this

Thats that. If you need to get in touch chances are you can find someone that knows me that can get in touch.

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Just now, thekeemo said:

super short shots

Elaborate more? I think it's more post processing than anything.

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Just now, byalexandr said:

Elaborate more? I think it's more post processing than anything.

Edited

was a bit confused

Thats that. If you need to get in touch chances are you can find someone that knows me that can get in touch.

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The middle photo appears to have had a bit of HDR or tone-mapping job done to it.

 

For the top and third photo, they were probably taken from another vehicle while driving or using a pan and shoot technique.  Or perhaps the photographer cut out the car in post, streaked the background and added the car back again.

 

A car doesn't really need to be going fast to get that motion shots, it can be driving 10mph (for example) and with the right shutter speed that motion effect can be achieved.

 

Of course, all the colors and tones are post processed.

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The first one is also achievable in Adobe Camera RAW with some use of the brush tool. 

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I've used rigs like these before, except in your examples (photos 1 and 3) the camera was probably in the hands of a photographer in another vehicle.

 

r_045_pc_400.jpg

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46 minutes ago, ALwin said:

The middle photo appears to have had a bit of HDR or tone-mapping job done to it.

 

For the top and third photo, they were probably taken from another vehicle while driving or using a pan and shoot technique.  Or perhaps the photographer cut out the car in post, streaked the background and added the car back again.

 

A car doesn't really need to be going fast to get that motion shots, it can be driving 10mph (for example) and with the right shutter speed that motion effect can be achieved.

 

Of course, all the colors and tones are post processed.

I meant the high contrast/high detail. The 'in motion' look is not really what I like about it, it just happened to be like that.

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Here is my first attempt on an photo I took. I think it's just HDR Toning in PS, that and a bit of sharpen/blur tool work. Very high contrast on this image but the stock photo was the same way.

Cuda Wallpaper.jpg

 

Kind of hard to remove the noise without making it look dull... :/

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12 hours ago, byalexandr said:

Here is my first attempt on an photo I took. I think it's just HDR Toning in PS, that and a bit of sharpen/blur tool work. Very high contrast on this image but the stock photo was the same way.

 

Kind of hard to remove the noise without making it look dull... :/

Which camera do you have and what were the settings?

 

If the camera was (for example) a DSLR/Mirrorless with 24MP or something, and you used say ISO 1600-6400 or something, don't do noise removal.  Just edit the way you want, and try reducing the resolution on export.  24MP is 6000x4000, try reducing the image size to half of that on the final export.

 

If you want to do noise reduction, change the sliders a tiny bit at a time until you get to an acceptable level (I recommend you zoom in to 100% when doing noise reduction and image sharpening) or just get Google Nik collection which is now free.  The Dfine plugin does a much better job (at least in my opinion) than Lightroom or Photoshop's native noise reduction tools.

https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

 

You also have to work with masks, don't do things like noise reduction, changing contrast, increasing saturation, etc. across the entire image.  Use masks or layers and work on enhancing different elements in the image separately.

 

For starters, Google Nik collection's plugins are fantastic.  Learn to properly use their UPoint technology and you'll go far.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, ALwin said:

Which camera do you have and what were the settings?

 

If the camera was (for example) a DSLR/Mirrorless with 24MP or something, and you used say ISO 1600-6400 or something, don't do noise removal.  Just edit the way you want, and try reducing the resolution on export.  24MP is 6000x4000, try reducing the image size to half of that on the final export.

 

If you want to do noise reduction, change the sliders a tiny bit at a time until you get to an acceptable level (I recommend you zoom in to 100% when doing noise reduction and image sharpening) or just get Google Nik collection which is now free.  The Dfine plugin does a much better job (at least in my opinion) than Lightroom or Photoshop's native noise reduction tools.

https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

 

You also have to work with masks, don't do things like noise reduction, changing contrast, increasing saturation, etc. across the entire image.  Use masks or layers and work on enhancing different elements in the image separately.

 

For starters, Google Nik collection's plugins are fantastic.  Learn to properly use their UPoint technology and you'll go far.

 

 

 

Wow, thanks for the help. That photo that you replied to was actually taken on my Nokia Lumia 1020. But for my regular photos I use a Nikon D40, not the most expensive or most full featured DSLR but it works nicely as I do have a few lenses to work with and some basic lightning equipment (i.e. some lamps with nice and balanced light bulbs and a flash bounce card for my built in flash lol).

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2 hours ago, ALwin said:

24MP is 6000x4000, try reducing the image size to half of that on the final export.

 

 

This doesn't make any sense.

It will just kill detail, because it is an unnecessary scaling process.

 

It is better to scale to the exact resolution of the display or the resolution of the print on the final export.

 

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1 hour ago, byalexandr said:

That photo that you replied to was actually taken on my Nokia Lumia 1020.

I sort of suspected something like that or at least a compact camera.  The blotchy colors that looks like someone poured oil paints over a canvas doesn't look like something that came out of a DSLR.  The D40 was a good camera, I have friends who still use theirs.

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22 minutes ago, ALwin said:

I sort of suspected something like that or at least a compact camera.  The blotchy colors that looks like someone poured oil paints over a canvas doesn't look like something that came out of a DSLR.  The D40 was a good camera, I have friends who still use theirs.

Only reason I still use mine is because I can't afford a newer one. Wish I could at least shoot video with it.

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The simple way to achieve similar look to first picture would be to use Detail extractor tool in Analog Effex (part of free Nik Collection). Another way would be Clarity slider in Lightroom. The second picture look like a basic HDR, there are tons of ways to do it.

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On 5/21/2016 at 7:39 AM, .spider. said:

This doesn't make any sense.

It will just kill detail, because it is an unnecessary scaling process.

 

It is better to scale to the exact resolution of the display or the resolution of the print on the final export.

 

That would not kill detail. That is completely false. It is true when up scaling an image to resolution that doesn't scale perfectly(an example of perfect scaling being 1 pixel up to 4 pixels)  as data needs to be interpolated. This is not the case when downsizing an image as there is no interpolation or "guessing" going on. In fact you are super sampling the image. This usually gives the effect of a "sharper" image. Its the same reason 2k or 4k footage looks sharper than 1080p on a native 1080p display. There is simply more information per pixel. Its the same reason it is possible to convert 4k 4:2:0 to 1080 4:4:4

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6 hours ago, bob345 said:

That would not kill detail. That is completely false. It is true when up scaling an image to resolution that doesn't scale perfectly(an example of perfect scaling being 1 pixel up to 4 pixels)  as data needs to be interpolated. This is not the case when downsizing an image as there is no interpolation or "guessing" going on. In fact you are super sampling the image. This usually gives the effect of a "sharper" image. Its the same reason 2k or 4k footage looks sharper than 1080p on a native 1080p display. There is simply more information per pixel. Its the same reason it is possible to convert 4k 4:2:0 to 1080 4:4:4

Do you really want to say that scaling an image's dimensions by sqrt(2) is beneficial for the image's quality?

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13 hours ago, bob345 said:

That would not kill detail. That is completely false. It is true when up scaling an image to resolution that doesn't scale perfectly(an example of perfect scaling being 1 pixel up to 4 pixels)  as data needs to be interpolated. This is not the case when downsizing an image as there is no interpolation or "guessing" going on. In fact you are super sampling the image. This usually gives the effect of a "sharper" image. Its the same reason 2k or 4k footage looks sharper than 1080p on a native 1080p display. There is simply more information per pixel. Its the same reason it is possible to convert 4k 4:2:0 to 1080 4:4:4

It is pretty much like this

 

 

 

Scaled the image in 120 iterations from 5170*3447px to 1321*882px

scale-to-98,87-120-iterations.jpg

 

Scaled the image in 1 iteration from 5170*3447px to 1321*881px

one-iteration.jpg

 

It is clearly visible that every single scaling process (at least for odd scaling factors like sqrt(2) or 98.87%) process worsens the image quality.  

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5 minutes ago, .spider. said:

It is pretty much like this

 

 

 

Scaled the image in 120 iterations from 5170*3447px to 1321*882px

 

 

Scaled the image in 1 iteration from 5170*3447px to 1321*881px

 

 

It is clearly visible that every single scaling process (at least for odd scaling factors like sqrt(2) or 98.87%) process worsens the image quality.  

That artifacting is not caused by scaling. It is caused by compression. That is a totally different issue altogether.

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1 hour ago, bob345 said:

That artifacting is not caused by scaling. It is caused by compression. That is a totally different issue altogether.

Are you serious? Don't you even know how artefacting caused by compression looks like?

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10 minutes ago, .spider. said:

Are you serious? Don't you even know how artefacting caused by compression looks like?

Yes, i am. Let me know how how you where able to re-scale an image 120 times too. I can guarantee you your methodology is flawed.

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7 minutes ago, bob345 said:

re-scale an image 120 times

WOW, 120 times?  Seems someone's got a lot of time on their hands.

 

I usually just export the size and crop I need from the "master" version whenever I need to produce an image for different purposes.  I've never done generational resizing and cropping...

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On 5/21/2016 at 1:55 PM, ALwin said:

24MP is 6000x4000, try reducing the image size to half of that on the final export.

12 minutes ago, ALwin said:

WOW, 120 times?  Seems someone's got a lot of time on their hands.

 

I usually just export the size and crop I need from the "master" version whenever I need to produce an image for different purposes.  I've never done generational resizing and cropping...

Why do you recommend it?

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22 minutes ago, bob345 said:

Yes, i am. Let me know how how you where able to re-scale an image 120 times too. I can guarantee you your methodology is flawed.

Run a Photoshop action 120 times. 

Maybe it is not the methodology could be your limited knowledge about scaling, thought about that?

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