Dave Hill Who?

Have you heard of Dave Hill?

If you haven’t, may I please request you to pause for a moment, reflect on your worthless existence, and give yourself a couple of hard slaps. Then, click on the link above and stare at his gallery for a while. Chances are, post that you might want to slap yourself again. Don’t let me hold you back.

The Dave Hill look, as it is referred to in general, is perhaps one of the most discussed about and attempted methods of photography today. Most people are in awe of the look, but since they cannot even reach near, they just convince themselves they hate it, it’s too cosmetic, it’s all PS, and blah, blah. I am undecided. Regardless of whether I like it or not, I’d still like to learn how to achieve that look. If I’m successful, it will make me feel powerful, and confirm my childhood suspicion that I’m a genius. If not, well, I HATE DAVE HILL too!

Firstly, I don’t claim to have figured it all out. Granted, I’m a genius et al, but I’ve still not grasped this method in its entirety. So, what I present here is strictly WORK IN PROGRESS.’

So, let’s get to it. While all of Dave Hill’s creations are heavily Photoshoped, it helps to keep in mind that this does require a good photograph with a particular kind of lighting to achieve the final effect. (An image of poop with the ‘Dave Hill’ look is…er…an image of Poop nonetheless. There are a whole lot of post-processing wizards out there attempting this with stock images, but ending up with nothing more than severe cases of dodged and burnt fingers. Similarly, there are photographers who’ve tried fitting in lights in every nook and crevice of the frame, but with similar results. Also, it doesn’t help that the creator himself seems to have a lot of fun contradicting himself every once in a while while revealing tiny tidbits about his ‘oh so secret’ method, and watching his followers scampering around in rabid frenzy.

The kind of lighting that Dave Hill uses in his images is called wraparound lighting (not really, but it is now anyway). There will be a soft main-light illuminating the subject from the front. To this will be added some rim-lights. These are comparatively hard light sources positioned behind the subject from either side of the frame, highlighting the subject’s edges as defined by the camera’s perspective. The difference between the two sets of lights would be around 1 or 2 f-stops (that’s Greek for aperture settings). What this does is give the lighting a nice wraparound lighting, as if wrapping itself around the contours of the subject. It also gives you a nice little, mildly intimidating phrase to throw around that comes in handy in various situations.

Cheap Friend & Wannabe Photographer: ‘Hey Rishi, isn’t it your turn to buy beer?’

Rishi (staring at reflection of self in mirror): ‘Yes, will be with you as soon as I figure out the f-stop differential used in this singularly inspiring art nouveau piece employing the highly acclaimed wraparound lighting.’

Cheap Friend & Wannabe Photographer: ‘Er…ok. Catch up with you then…in 2012…’

Other characteristic elements of a Dave Hill creation would be a lot of dynamism. Thankfully, for you, I am not talking about the photographer’s personality here. All of his frames have some kind of a dynamic feel to them – either something is happening or about to happen (That immediately rules out Karthik as a subject, as the only thing that happens in his life happened about 28 years ago). Also, he contrasts this dynamism with a very wide depth of field, keeping almost the entire background in focus. (Since I’m God, I disregarded this last bit in this example).

We will follow 4 simple post processing steps:

Step 1: First, we need to do a bit of healing. Make liberal use of the spot healing brush and the cloning tool to eliminate any blemishes, potholes or craters on your subject’s body. In case you are photographing Om Puri, here’s when you should say ‘D’Oh’ and quit. For others, you are looking for a reasonably flawless looking skin, as otherwise, what we’re going to do next will amplify the imperfections further, making everyone look like Om Puri (I love the actor, but he’s just not Dave Hill-ish material).

Step 2: Next, you create three duplicate layers of your healed layer, and name them (bottom up) Median 30, High Pass 5 and Mask. Please be sure to carefully replicate these names otherwise your computer is liable to go up in smoke in under 30 seconds of your doing this. That, and the fact that it helps you remember the steps. Once that is done, select the layer named ‘Median 30′, and apply FILTER>NOISE> MEDIAN with a value of 30. Then, select the layer titled High Pass 5, and apply OTHER> HIGH PASS, with a setting of 5. Change the blending mode of this layer to ‘Overylay’. Next, log on to your bank account, and transfer all your money to my paypal account. After that, move on to the layer named Mask, and apply a mask over it. Fill it with white. Now, take a nice soft brush (0 will do fine), and having selected the white mask rectangle to the right of the layer thumbnail, start painting your subject’s skin with black. Take care to stay away from edges and sharp areas like eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips, etc. What this will do is make your subject’s skin look awesomely soft, while still preserving enough detail so as to differentiate it from Barbie’s butt. Do this for all of the exposed skin.

Step 3: Next, we apply the LucisArt filter. But before that, remember to flatten your image and make a duplicate layer to minimize the damage you’re most certainly going to do next. Go to FILTER> LUCIS. Set the control on the top-left of the screen to Whyeth, and the mix level to 30. There are 7 buttons on the bottom of the panel, of which the first would be selected by default. This will do just fine. Press okay. Chances are that what will now be presented to you will probably not look pretty. Play around with the ‘transparency of this layer till you’re satisfied.

Step 4: Then comes the fun part. This is where the Dave Hill look really comes out (It better, as it’s the last step). Flatten your image again, and create a duplicate layer. Select the burn tool from the tools palette, set it’s exposure to somewhere between 10 – 20, and setting to ’shadows’. Now, run the tool over all the shadow areas of your image. Try it first on the clothes of your subject till you get the hang of it. When you think you’ve done enough, do this some more (remember, exposure is at 10 to 20, so you might have to apply this more than once to see any visible difference). Next, select the dodge tool and repeat the process over the highlights on your image, with the setting at ‘highlights’ and the exposure value at anywhere between 5 – 10.

As a finishing touch, add some vignetting effect by applying FILTER> LENS CORRECTION. If you’re not as lazy as I am, you’d have hopefully taken the extra trouble of actually setting your composition against an interesting background – so, you might want to do some colour correction and sharpening there, If you are, then you can just sit back and gloat at your new creation.

This should do it. You should now be the creator of your very own Dave Hill image that you can flash around and blind your wannabe-photographer friends with.

And how have I evolved this elaborate method? I haven’t. There is this noble soul out there called Joel Grimes, who like me, is a very gifted photographer. And unlike Dave Hill, he believes in spreading the knowledge. Do visit his blog for some very nice tutorials on wraparound lighting and post-processing. In fact, I’ve learnt the initial skin softening process from him. For the rest of the method, I’ve relied on another resourceful individual called Google.

Do let me know how your results look. And throw in a few pointers if you figure out something that I’ve overlooked.

1 Total TweetBacks: (Tweet this post)

: @nalibrandi That was the jackpot! Great resource- makes me want to visit Kentucky 11/02/09 06:19pm

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Comments ( 1235Dave+Hill+Who%3F2009-08-07+03%3A13%3A44admin )

Dave Hill Who?…

A nice writeup explaining one of the most intriguing photographic techniques that has come to be known as the ‘Dave Hill’ effect. Complete with lighting information, and tips on post-processing….

www.rambhai.com added these pithy words on Aug 07 09 at 11:03 pm

[...] Setup: Back to Joel Grimes/ Dave Hill territory here. A regular 3 light setup. Two rim-lights to light my sides, while a soft-box acts as [...]

Narcissism: For When You Run Out of Models added these pithy words on Mar 28 10 at 12:44 am