My Weekend Challenge – Achieving the 300 movie effects without Photoshop
After watching the movie ‘300′ 2 weeks ago, I posed a challenge for myself – achieve the same effects in my photos WITHOUT using Photoshop! My primary objective was to achieve it just by editing the photo in Lightroom. Of course, you can still argue that Lightroom is technically ‘Photoshop Lightroom’, but since this is my challenge for myself, you can’t do anything about it! 
hahaha!
So, after playing around with the Settings in the Develop Module of Lightroom, here’s what I came out with. It’s not quite there yet, but I hope it’s a good start. Give me your feedback please.
As usual, click on the photos to view the larger version.
Here’s the original version of the last photo without the effects applied.
After I complete my tweaks, I’ll come up with a Lightroom Preset to apply this. I tried to do this last night but the shadows and blacks were too much!
For people wanting to play with the effects, here’s what you can do in Lightroom:
- play with Split Toning to achieve a ‘gold color cast’; Sepia Presets are a good way to start with this
- Adjust the following sliders in the develop module:
- Blacks and Contrast: Increase
- Recovery and Fill Light: Increase a bit depending on how you increased the blacks.
- Saturation and Vibrance: Decrease
- Exposure: Increase a bit
- Tone Curve: Medium or Strong Contrast generally works well
- Finally, Add a bit of Lens Vignetting to add more drama to the photo
Found this site (Jasontopia.com) that shows how he did it in Photoshop: http://www.jasontopia.com/2007/03/13/the-movie-300-photoshop-talk/
Posted by Jason on April 2, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Hey, cool! Thanks! I’ll try the same effect in Aperture (which is what I use rather than Lightroom) … it might be easier than in Photoshop. Of course, in Aperture I won’t be able to add in the sword, the blood, and the background… so maybe I WILL have to stock to photoshop. Thanks!
Jason
http://www.jasontopia.com
Posted by Mike Lao on April 2, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Hey Jason, let me know how it goes in Aperture! Might experiment with that too! Agree with you on adding the other elements in Photoshop… it’s still more powerful!
Thanks for visiting my site!
Posted by Tuna Blue on April 7, 2007 at 1:53 am
i don’t think you can achieve the same 300 effect if you have 3 little boys rather than 300 hot men! mwahahaha
my lightroom beta expired! huhu! i feel like i lost my magic wand! hassle!
great tips on adobe light room! i’ll take note of them!
Posted by gwenny14 on April 7, 2007 at 2:19 am
Haha! Nams! That’s a funny comment.
I think it’s great though Mikelao.
Posted by Mike Lao on April 8, 2007 at 10:00 pm
hahaha! funny comment, nams! but you’re right! i just don’t know how you guys will react if you see me post a picture of 300 hot men. don’t worry, i’ll post a picture of lazy next time in 300 effect! haha!
nams/gwen – thanks!
Posted by Shiraz Chanawala on August 13, 2007 at 2:20 am
Has anyone got the above in a CS2 action?
Posted by Leroy Harris on September 14, 2008 at 2:14 am
I downloaded the presets but it come in 2 files v1 & v2 ….I put them in lightroom and I only have one preset to work with….I must be doing something wrong….Can someone HELP me…….Please email me the presets at emaillwh@yahoo.com
Please HELP…………
Posted by Lightroom ‘300 Presets’ ROCKS! « mikelao photography on December 31, 2008 at 1:33 pm
[...] Rudy – unfortunately, you can’t install them in Photoshop. You have to use Lightroom. There is another way to achieve the same effects in Photoshop though. Check out my post here. http://mikelao.wordpress.com/2007/04/02/300-like-effects/ [...]
Posted by Epic Styler Contest Winners and Download on February 17, 2009 at 11:40 am
[...] a color pop Photoshop Action from Tom Weeks, a Flickr resizer Photoshop Action from me, and a 300 movie style Lightroom Preset from Mike [...]