Jamie Neale

Black & White - Mercury Look

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Hey,

I've been asked to create a mercury like look for a black and white car promo I'm grading.

Started with a red filter style BW grade then played with luma only adjustments to add silver but I wonder if there's something I'm missing.

Does anyone have any tips or techniques to share for creating more of a mercury liquid like look?

Any help would be much appreciated.

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9 hours ago, Nicolas Hanson said:

Any chance you can post references? Sounds like you are looking for ways to compress highlights but your post is a bit cryptic and I'm not up for guess games right now.  

Totally understand. Not trying to be cryptic but can't post references from the actual job . Trying to think of ways to make a black and white image look a little more like mercury (pic below). I'm thinking it's about combining softening and edge sharpening, maybe luma only sharpening and lots of selective blur.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

mercury2-1582140059.jpeg

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I think they are quite similar really when it comes to silver. You could try to de-connect the RGB channels and draw a luma curve.  It will increase the silver.  You could also use the top part of the curve to compress the highlights or flatten them out. And, play with the midtone details slider to reduce sharpness. 

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13 hours ago, Nicolas Hanson said:

I think they are quite similar really when it comes to silver. You could try to de-connect the RGB channels and draw a luma curve.  It will increase the silver.  You could also use the top part of the curve to compress the highlights or flatten them out. And, play with the midtone details slider to reduce sharpness. 

Thanks Nicolas, I'll give those a try. Thanks for taking the time to check out my post.

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