Here are our selections from the Alien Skin Flickr pool for the week. Thanks everyone who shared!

Meet Matt Silverlock. He’s an editorial photographer, engineer, and a sometimes-cyclist. He’s based in Western Australia.

Matt shared his editing workflow. He’s a Lightroom user. The rest of this article is from him. Read on to hear how he edits most of his work.

Thanks for sharing, Matt!

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I hunted around for a while after a tool that could help me replicate the smooth colours and grain of 35mm film. I tried a handful of presets and plug-ins, but few worked nicely with Lightroom, and fewer still gave me natural-looking grain. Lightroom’s grain feature (and any presets that use it) is decidedly basic. It looks more like noise under the right wrong conditions. I was impressed when I first used Exposure. It had a wide variety of film emulations, it fit in nicely with my existing workflow, and it produced great-looking grain.

Lightroom still does the bulk of my library management, so it was easy to add Exposure. I’ve been using Exposure for a while now, and I’m always happy with the results.

Here’s how I edit. I start off with a first pass in Lightroom to fix the important stuff like exposure, white balance, sharpening, and curves. I usually apply a medium contrast curve; I’ll bring the highlights down a bit, pop the light tones, and pull back the dark tones & shadows.

I then apply my preferred Exposure film emulation. I’m a big fan of the Fuji Reala or Fuji Pro 400H presets for my color work. For black & white, my favorites are Ilford HP5 and Tri-X.

I “finish” my images with a solid fill grey layer in Photoshop. I use 54% grey and set the layer to exclusion mode. For colour images, I set the layer to 10% opacity. I set the opacity slightly higher for black & white photos. This flattens the image out a bit, and it lightens the blacks. Keeping the opacity of this layer low keeps the image contrast up; more opacity makes the effect more extreme.

Save, close, and go back into Lightroom. This will automatically “stack” the new file onto the original, so you don’t have a messy library. You can experiment with some other Exposure emulations using the original file. Press “C” in Lightroom to compare different versions side-by-side.

Having the ability to replicate some of my favorite films means that my photos have a final look that’s consistent and identifiable, regardless of whether I’m shooting digitally or analog.

For me, editing is about putting your personal touch on an image. Don’t let the camera’s JPEG engine do it for you. Make the image look the way you intend it.

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Check out some of Matt’s work below. For more, take a look at his blog and his Flickr Photostream.

Here are our selections from the Alien Skin Flickr pool for the week. Thanks everyone who shared!

Here are our selections from the Alien Skin Flickr pool for the week. Thanks everyone who shared!

Here are our selections from the Alien Skin Flickr pool for the week. Thanks everyone who shared!

Frank Doorhof is a well-respected international fashion and glamour photographer. Teaching has always been his passion. Frank is a Kelby Training Instructor and a heck of a nice guy too. He wrote a terrific article on the importance of tinting. Here it is below.

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If you are making a living from your images, it’s important to stand out from the rest of the crowd, especially online. The same is true for landing a photography job. A few years ago there were a lot of photographers, now there are thousands. Editors and marketers don’t have time to investigate new talent in photography’s overcrowded market. They usually stay with whom they’re familiar, or purchase stock images.

Don’t worry about developing your own style. That will come by itself –it’s the way you do your thing, the way you tilt the camera, coach the model, etc. I think tinting is an aspect of style. Here’s why.

What is tinting?

In the “old” days, photographers used something called film. Each film had it’s own unique set of characteristics. A roll of Fuji Velvia, for example, behaved differently than a roll of Astia or a roll of Portra. You could say film choice was the first step in retouching because the film type played a huge part in the look of the images.

You can do this with curves in Lightroom or Photoshop, but if you want a little bit more flexibility and fine control, I prefer Exposure from Alien Skin Software. Exposure gives you dozens of film types and plenty of controls for making customizations. The sky is the limit.

Back to the story

I always tint my images with Exposure. It really gives them pop. Sometimes it’s very subtle; sometimes I go a bit more aggressive. 99% of my images have some form of tinting from Exposure on them.

Here are some examples. I’ll start out with a standard portrait of our model Nadine. This was lit with a small silver Elinchrom Beauty dish with a silver deflector.

There’s nothing wrong with it, but it needs a little more warmth. So I used one of my presets in Exposure 4.

Here’s another example. We used a standard white background for the shoot, removed the main light, and opened up the aperture for this great-looking blown out look. The background radiates so much light that it lit the model from the front.

Now there is one problem: Color and tinting are always interpreted as personal taste. I like the more extreme or vintage colorings myself. Anything is possible. Your unique taste defines your style and your approach.

I encourage you to start playing with tints. It’s a great way to help your images stand out as well as to further develop your style.

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Check out Frank’s website, his workshop website, his Youtube channel, or find him on Kelbytraining.com.

Here are our selections from the Alien Skin Flickr pool for the week. Thanks everyone who shared!