neolite

WOW Sheba [stuned] You certainly are a fast learner!

I'm still at the infancy stage on mine.

Keep up the good work [righton] ...and be prepared to explain to someone like me how you did it.

Elaray

;\ Thanks neo. I tend to get obsessed over these things. [bustagut]

I did a lot of layer tweaking, merging, more layers. Like I said, it's not nearly as cool and far from perfect, but I look forward to learning with you all.

MsOz

Part of "the Look" is achieved through the textures and contrasts. Notice the folds in fabrics such as the sikh's turban...

Although the effect is not as dramatic without good contrasty fabric and hair/skin tones, use of the Dodge and Burn tools, along with some contrast adjustment still does a good job. I used an Outer Glow layer style with a bit of airbrushing for the background.

I removed the original background with the magic wand tool, and Quick mask for the edges of the hair.

neolite

Nice job MsOz!

Dodo

I'm not even sure what we're supposed to be doing with this! 8}

(PSD) Sergiy

Good Job Dodo its looks like its 3D figure [righton]

Bacardi

You read the question well?
How to obtain this charcoal-like effect in a photograph (the Darren Levant style)

As you're all sooo impatient [confused] to show your skills, I have to jump to conclusions. As I wrote, I was trying to explain Neolite how to attack this kind of problem.
ahhh...another time perhaps...

Bacardi

This is a detail at width set to 1600
(I did reduce file size to 1600 wide simply to fasten things as I am not on my own puter right now.)

Bacardi

Right.

I understand you read what i wrote earlier in this thread so I won't explain in detail.

1/ I went to channels, and chose the blue one (I keep my mind's eye on the result and choose with that in mind) Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+C to copy it. Back to master channel
2/ Back to layers palette. Ctrl+V to paste the channel in a layer. Add a layer mask. Alt-click on the layer mask to activate/show it and Ctrl+V to paste the greyscale-once-BlueChannel in here too.
side remark: observe the result with the coloured version below it!!!
3/ activate the background, go to channel mixer and check desaturate. Set channels appr. the same (each one third)
4/ Activate layer-with-mask and apply Unsharp Mask (indeed Mark, my trick too ) set to 500, 3, 0
5/ copy this layer
6/ top layer: activate mask and invert it. Apply levels, set to 0, 1,5, 140
7/ middle layer: activate mask (no inverse here) apply levels, set to 0, 3, 140
8/ change the top layer's mode to Multiply and the middle ones to LinearBurn
9/ now take a soft brush, not too small and paint black on the eyes and eyelids (see image) in the top layer so that they get lighter.
save.

now do what I couldn't do here and grab that wacom pen and draw on a new layer that aura with a fine white brush (yes: mr Levant is patient and so should you be!)

flatten, and apply unsharp mask again, set to 70, 1, 0 (which I did)

You can fine-tune of course. For example: I wouldn't stay in grey, but apply a very(!!!) slight reddish brown hue to it.
And tweak the settings a bit, paint a bit more on the masks etc etc...
Mr. Levant's work is lighter. As I didn't select the head now (to be able to change the background), I kept the face itself also fairly dark. This also shows the technique much clearer.

Bacardi

Crap...forgot that you may not have a wacom...

(I recommed buying one of those cheapo Graphire2. really good investment.)
I haven't got one either here, so here we go:

When you have arrived at the result I explained earlier, it's easy to select the figure.
Start with the flattened image; Ctrl+A then Ctrl+C to select and copy, then copy the background, add a mask, alt-click on the mask icon andCtrl+V to paste.
Now apply once again that unsharp mask at some 500, 1,5, 0 and then take a brush and white, and paint the whole figure white, except for the borders. (too complicated without a pen). Now go to Image>Adjust> Threshold and play a bit to left and right. Choose a good setting (easy to fill in the last specks of white, so you get a white silhouette against a black background.)

Ctrl+click on the mask so as to load it as a selection.
Invert the selection

Activate the background and open levels. make lighter then use Gaussian blur.

Invert the selection back (so that the silhouette is selected) and apply levels. make it more contrasty by dragging both the black and white triangle atowards the centre but don't exaggerate)
Now Go to Selection>Modify>Expand and expand some 25 pixels (I am still working with the 1600 wide version, so adapt sizes as necessary for the size you chose)
The Selection>Feather and enter some 8 pixels.

Now Filter>Radial Blur set to Zoom and best and enter max value (100).

This gives you a white aura and a lighter, blurred background.
deselect
save.

Activate the top layer, ctrl+click on the mask (load as a selection) and apply Image>Adjust>ColorBalance to give a tad of yellow and red to the face.

Play a bit with curves on the face on the layer, deselect and finallyplay a bit with levels on the background.

save and then flatten, and resize. save for web and upload.