How to recreate this photo look

Question

I would like to reproduce the look of the following image which has been delivered to me without the settings used. I'm a beginner and I cannot seem to be able to match it. It seems to me there will be a lot of clarity and then maybe compensated by lowered contrast, maybe highlights lowered (now speaking in terms of ACR settings) and then probably some split toning. I don't have the original image so I'm working on a similar one from the same environment (the second image). What I was able to achieve is on the third image but it still isn't completely right (also apparently the color of the shirt doesn't match although it's the same one). I used +clarity +saturation -highlights and split toning setting (ACR) with cyan in highlights and yellow in shadows. Any ideas how to match it completely?

EDIT: Here is also the raw file of the image I'm trying to make look the same https://ufile.io/7zaajrxn

Answer 1

If you open the RAW, then reset the camera raw defaults, and set the White Balance "as shot". Then go have a look in the Presets tab, under the "color" sub category, and choose "Matte". The look is pretty close to the first photograph. Obviously you can then co back tweak the clartity/other controls a little to refine it.

Answer 2

Let's face the truth: most people don't have the professional color sensitivity or fine art background, so with Camera Raw it's difficult to do so. Consider do it in photoshop getting color directly from sample image, like so: 1, drag in the sample as a layer, ctrl+T to shrink it down. 2, ABOVE background layer, create a curve layer, then click it's layer thumbnail, to make sure it's active instead of its layer mask. Then, hold ALT key to click AUTO button. 3, do as shown in the following image, find the darkest (or next to darkest) point and the lightest (or next to lightest) point in sample. You can adjust at will, in this image, I change highlight from cyanish to orangish red, you can see that in step 4's image. 4, click OK and when asked if you want to save it default, say no. You can ALT+AUTO again and again to re-adjust....Now you get an overall color tone and contrast mimic. Compare two images you'll find sample is a little less grey, so in this curve's RGB you could give it a little contrast by changing shadow, highlight and middle grey, keeping an eye on the two images. My version may not be perfect but you got the idea. 5, now comes the part of local adjustment, if needed, e.g. the red dress, which is the catch of this photo. Use any tool at will, here I use selective color. Protect skin tone with layer mask and maybe adjust skin in another layer, if needed. Here I guess it's ok. All done. Of course you could lower saturation of blue shirt, it's a irrelavent and eye-catching, but I'll keep this post simple. That's the fastest way. With other method you can separately adjust/mimic color, contrast and saturation.

Answer 3

No raw available here, only your JPG. To get this, try the following (for JPG):

• increase color depth to 16 bit/color to get room with Image > Mode; jut a precaution against banding
• add vibrancy (=increase saturation of low saturation colors) to max
• make color selective hue & saturation& brightness adjustments; FOR RED: hue+25, saturation-9,lightness-15 FOR BLUE: sat -100, place the band so that the introduced blueness of black cloths vanishes, but a little is left on the shirt of the man in the background

If you aren't familiar with every control in dialog Image > Adjustments > Hue&Saturation, learn them. You need them all except this time "colorize" isn't used.

Have in color settings sRGB as the working RGB mode. If you use Adobe RGB, you easily see all differently than others who have only sRGB gear.

You can open JPG also in Adobe Camera Raw. There's even more settings possible. For ex. color selective hue, saturation & luminance sliders. I couldn't make a better version there, but you (with the raw image) have chances to success.