A Concert in Cinematic
Six steps how to create a Cinematic Look:
1. The curves panel in the Develop module in Lightroom is the very best place for adding contrast to an image, because of the subtlety that can be achieved with the tool. It is one of the more complicated tools in Lightroom, but adding various cures to your develop presets or to the camera raw presets is a highly efficient way to create incredibly subtle effects. Not only is the curves panel a great place for contrast effects, it is also the very best place to create color effects for both toned black and white and color images. The individual R, G and B curves make even better toned images than the Tone panel does.
2. Split toning has become quite popular thanks to Adobe Lightroom making it easy for photographers to experiment and add duo-tone sepia and film effects to their photographs. Since the days of Ansel Adams using split toning the technique has evolved and we now use it slightly different to in the past. That’s not to say it can’t still be used like it traditionally was but as photography has evolved as have the way techniques are used. Photographers are now using split toning on the shadows and highlights of their images to recreate film effects like cross processing or adding a duo-tone like effect to their image.
3. Crop Tool: Changing the Aspect Ratio size to 16:9 or 2:1. Cropping and straightening photos are fundamental steps of image processing in Lightroom. They can also be first steps for resizing photos in Lightroom.
4. Letterboxing with Graduated Filter (Black Bars): With the tool selected you need to click and drag from the point where you want the gradient to begin and let the mouse button go once you've reached the point you want the gradient to end. As you do, three lines will appear across your image and the effect will gradually fade from the first to third line, where the effect will finish. Keep the lines very tight. Anything below this line won't be affected by the gradient however, anything above the top line will be changed. Also, the bigger the gap between each line, the softer the gradient will be. Set one filter to the top of the picture and one to the bottom. Bring the exposure of the filter down and copy the filter four times.
5. The Film Grain. One notable featured of photographic film has always been grain. Although, like high ISO noise in digital world, it was a result of increased light sensitivity and as such, an undesirable degradation of image quality, film grain was loved even during the past era of photography.
6. Creating the Preset. Go to the Develop Preset panel and click the Create New Preset icon (the plus sign at the top, to the right of the word “Presets”). This brings up the New Develop Preset window. Give the Preset a name and select a folder to save it in (User Presets is a good one). Click the Check All button and press Create when you are ready to save the Preset. After this step apply the Preset to your Photos.
