How to create clean yet muted photos

personally, I'd shoot on Kodak Portra 160NC, but i'm sure you could also fudge it in Photoshop :)
 
You can get a muted look in processing (photoshop, lightroom or other software), a lens/sensor combination that can achieve a shallow DOF helps isolate the subject for a cleaner composition.

This particular image appears to take on a Pentax 67II which is a medium format film camera, so you might be chasing rainbows trying to replicate the EXACT look - but you could get close with processing, a fast lens and large sensor.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hamadahideaki/8751038736/in/faves-79087255@N04/
 
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wasn't a bad guess at portra 160NC then... the 400's maybe a little less muted, depending on how accurately the 160NC's exposed...

(eta: should have guessed at 400 really, as it was indoors, 400, maybe pushed one stop would make more sense really d'ohh...)
 
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Cheers, guys! Your expertise has been very useful :)

I have a Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, It should be good enough to create something similar with some photoshop tweaking?
 
You could check out the VSCO film presets they're not cheap but very good.
 
Or Instagram. And many other picture editors are available.

What would you need to do?
  • Reduce the contrast slightly.
  • Reduce the staturation slightly
  • Adjust the colour tone slightly.
  • Overlay a slight soft focus effect
 
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The look in that shot is entirely down to the composition and lighting.

The light is coming from a large window on the left possibly softened with gauze. There is some evidence that the shadows have been filled probably by a large reflector as there is no evidence of flash.The left, shadow side, of the child's face is lighter than all other shadow areas, so has probably been lifted in photoshop. The softness appears to come from the use a very wide aperture lens as the depth of field is minimal It also seems from the perspective to have been of longer than normal focal length, such as 50mm on a crop sensor.

The actual colours are quite strong for such a soft image so again were probably lifted somewhat in PS

The area around the blue guitar and that floor region has a slightly milky desaturated look suggesting that the light has been balanced by dodging that area. While the wall has been brought to a nice balance, the Guitar, mirror, floor, shadows and the reflection in the mirror have been somewhat overdone.
 
Agree with Ian, with adjusting the colour tone being the most prominent. What software are you going to use? I'd be using RGB curves in Photoshop to do this. Keep us updated!
 
ianp5a said:
Or Instagram. And many other picture editors are available.

What would you need to do?
  • Reduce the contrast slightly.
  • Reduce the staturation slightly
  • Adjust the colour tone slightly.
  • Overlay a slight soft focus effect
Click to expand...

Cheers, for this.It definitely makes sense! Will be trying it out tonight.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
The look in that shot is entirely down to the composition and lighting.

The light is coming from a large window on the left possibly softened with gauze. There is some evidence that the shadows have been filled probably by a large reflector as there is no evidence of flash.The left, shadow side, of the child's face is lighter than all other shadow areas, so has probably been lifted in photoshop. The softness appears to come from the use a very wide aperture lens as the depth of field is minimal It also seems from the perspective to have been of longer than normal focal length, such as 50mm on a crop sensor.

The actual colours are quite strong for such a soft image so again were probably lifted somewhat in PS

The area around the blue guitar and that floor region has a slightly milky desaturated look suggesting that the light has been balanced by dodging that area. While the wall has been brought to a nice balance, the Guitar, mirror, floor, shadows and the reflection in the mirror have been somewhat overdone.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the proper analysis! I'm really glad to see that people take time and effort with their replies.
 
Keep a copy of each operation, to be able to compare your experiments with each other. As there is a danger of frustration if you make things worse.
 
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