What is this photo technique?

[T110MAS]

Hi people,

I'm getting back into photography after taking a long break out after graduating, and was looking at inspiration photos (like you do) and stumbled accross these two:

I really like how they both appear very "flat" looking, ie no highlights (just midtones and shadows).

What I am wondering is how this technique has been achieved? It seems to be much more than simply adjusting levels in photoshop, since the detail in the highlights (especially skin) has been completely flattened.

Also does this photography technique have a name, as I would love to research more images of a similar nature.

I hope that some of you clever folks can help me out here

 

[Pookeyhead]

Not sure it has a name, but it's just excessive contrast adjustment using curves. It reminds me of what was called lith printing back in the film days, except lith development used to give a orange/pink cast. It;s just an aggressive curve, with lifted blacks. The lighting also needs to be very flat and up front too.

 

[arclight]

Not 100% sure. I was tempted to say the technique is known as High Key, but the shots seem to go a bit beyond (in terms of contrast and tonal compression) that most high keys shots I have seen.

 

[DazJW]

If you apply a curves adjustment with two points and move the top right point (the highlights end of the curve) to the left you'll get this. It's basically the same as clipping your highlights by overexposing but you get much finer control over it. If you move the same point down the highlights will get darker so there are no pure white areas (which is most noticeable in the first image).

You can do the opposite at the other end of the curve to affect the shadows - moving the bottom left point to the right will clip the shadows while moving it up will make them lighter so there are no pure black areas (which is most noticeable in the second image).

Then you can add whatever points you want in between those two to fine tune the image.