Soft Contrast in Photoshop

[poompy]

Link is here

http://www.good-tutorials.com/track/14965

has anyone used this? if so do you like the results? i have been playing and quite like it however was just wanting a general consensus.

you can obviously play with opacity and saturation but here is a quick and dirty.

here is a before and after

let me know what you think

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/poompy/408584842/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/156/408584842_274a9cad02.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Graham" /></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/poompy/412199021/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/129/412199021_cb658c13ab.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Graham_2" /></a>

[DaveB]

What do I think? At least with the result you've posted here, I'd have to say it's horrible!
His face has become a tomato, his brown hat has become black, and the lack of detail in the overexposed areas is much more striking. Should I go on?

Sorry, you asked...

[Nnnnsic]

I wouldn't call that "Soft Contrast"... I'd call it "Soft with Hard Contrast" or "Low Key Hard Contrast"... and I have to agree with Dave.

You've really murdered the contrast in the image and made it... well... crap.

[ATJ]

I prefer the first image.

[Yi-P]

The PP'd version doesnt work at all, sorry to say...

[poompy]

now that you have pointed out the blantantly obvious, i have to agree it is crap and i also prefer the original.

thanks for the feedback, i really appreciate it.

[macka]

It might work on a different image. One where losing detail in shadows and highlights isn't such an issue. And where there aren't any skin tones to mess with. You never know...

[poompy]

It might work on a different image. One where losing detail in shadows and highlights isn't such an issue. And where there aren't any skin tones to mess with. You never know...

yeh i was about to say would there acutally be a use for this sort of thing considering the example (not the best) and the examples on the link.

[Yi-P]

How about applying the workflow over a BW image?

[Nnnnsic]

Might make it a low-key black & white Yi-P, but if you lose out on anywhere near as much detail as Poompy has here, then it might just be better off making a standard black & white with a low-key feel.

[gstark]

Why even bother with this sort of crap?

Get it right, in the camera, and be done with this shit. This is why we have different curves that we can load into our cameras, btw. Change your camera's shotting characteristics in one fell swoop.