Cross Processing in Photoshop

Hei everybody, this is my second tutorial about photo retouching (the first one can be found here).
As i stated previously, i'm not a big fan of post-processed photographs or heavily photoshopped images, as i believe that the goal of a photographer is to achieve what is on his mind with his camera and not through his computer. But sometimes Photoshop can be useful to mimick some long or expensive procedures, or just to kill a couple of hours when you're bored.
So, after explaining my point of wiew, today what i'm showing is some kind of cross processing procedure.
I've stumbled across this method after palying a while with the newly released Nikon Capture NX, and then improved it and converted to 8 Photoshop steps for your convenience.

What is cross processing

Cross-processing, briefly, is a photographic technique where (usually) slide film (E6) is processed in the set of chemicals usually used to process print film (C41). (Less common is cross-processing in the other direction - print film processed in slide film chemicals). The result is images with oddly skewed colors and increased contrast and saturation.

The tutorial

All right, let's begin:

1. Open an image in Photoshop and apply all routine settings.
2. You image should look fine and well balanced. Boost a little bit the colors if needed (use saturation and contrast to achieve the desired result).
   Now comes the highest "random factor" part. I call this the random part of the job because it really depens on the image you're working on, so don't trust completely the values i'm providing in this step.
   Pull up your curves adjustment layer, and select the blue channel. Now lower the ending point of the line (the one that sits at the top right corner by default, and add a second point to the midtones to create a gentle convex curve. Do the same with the green channel. Now select the red channel and create a concave curve adding a couple of points then tweak them until you achieve a desiderable result.

3. Duplicate the image layer and place it on top of the curves layer you've created before. Then select FIlter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask and put in high values - i've used 97% Amount, 20 pixels Radius and left Threshold to 0.
4. Keep the duplicated layer selected in you layers palette and choose Luminosity from Blending Mode, then set Opacity to 50% or less.
5. Create a new Curves adjustment layer on top of the duplicated layer and play with the color channels as you did before (see step 2).
   You may want to increase contrast if needed.
6. Your image should look now with funky colors. Here comes the "tinting process". Create a new fill color layer above the photo layer with a yellow-like color (i've used #F5D888. Note that if you create this layer with the solid color command at the bottom of the layers palette, it will be easier for you to edit it later on) then set layer's opacity to 70% and blending mode to multiply.
7. Now your image will probably look tinted, but too dark. Don't worry, that's normal. You're gonna hit levels to balance lighting in your photograph (you may want to use curves instead for spot to spot brightness correction).
8. Now you photograph should be almost done. You may want to tweak colors a little bit more, so here how to do it (if you're satisfied with your final result, consider this one an optional step).
   The final adjustments again are done by hand and depend on your image. Pull up the Color Balance adjustment layer and cast you image colors to you liking. For example, i've slid the selector towards Magenta to avalue of -18 on the Midtones tone balance, then boosted the Blue on the Highlights up to +41 and left the Shadows unchanged.

I've compressed all the instructions described above in one handy action for Photoshop.

Notes on the action

This action actually contains all the above instructions with - almost - the same settings described in the tutorial, so you may not achieve a good result just by the plain use of this action on all your photographs.
Therefore i've left all the adjustments layers and didn't merge them toghether in the final result. For example you may want to change the solid color layer's color or one of the curves layers to fit best you images.

Have fun with it!

This tutorial has been made refearring to the following sources:

• Flickr
• ActionCentral
• Noise to Signal
• Shanzcan

Direct-link URL:
http://www.biscaclothing.com/news/2006/07/cross_processing_in_photoshop_1.html

TrackBacks

30 comments on "Cross Processing in Photoshop"

Another nice article guys! Keep it up!

I heard no voices.. (?)

Simo, the new portraits on flickr are amazing. The Sly one made me cry (almost).
Why didn't you come down man?

Excellent dude!! Thanks so much for the sharing! Superb!

Do you suppose you can make a PSD file one day? Thank you! Please e-mail me when/if you do so! Btw..GREAT TUTORIAL!

Awesome tutorial!! Thanks muchly! I found this one through the group on Flickr!

In this video, Justin Seeley will show us very quickly and very easily how to create a cross process look on photograph by using the curve dialog box in photoshop.

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