Elena Shumilova's technique?

**patia** · 03-22-2014, 12:45 PM

You may have seen this Russian mom's wonderful photographs of her kids: Flickr: aleshurik's Photostream. Flickr just did a blog post about her, too: Flickr Blog.

It's amazing that she's only been taking pictures for two years. She obviously has a great eye and instincts, not to mention a good camera, adorable models and a beautiful landscape.

But I'm wondering, what technique is she using to get that sepia glow? Looking back through her stream, you can see her evolution from a more natural color palette to one that emphasizes browns/golds/blues. Is that a particular filter in Photoshop, or something else?

**ksbryan0** · 03-22-2014, 02:00 PM

Her work is very nice and does have a unique look. I toyed with some images in Lightroom to see if I could come close to the look she uses. I see some similarities between her look and what the Old Polar and Bleach Bypass presets do. My guess is, if she is a LR user, she has built some presets but then also performs some selective desaturation on backgrounds in PS or some other image editor.

**patia** · 03-22-2014, 03:24 PM

Thank you, Ken. I use Photoshop, not Lightroom, unfortunately, so I can't try those out. But that's good to know.

**Andyjos** · 03-27-2014, 04:09 AM

Hi,

I've see, these images before. They are really beautiful. The lighting is just great. I wish I could take photos like this!

**GB1** · 03-27-2014, 08:54 PM

Definitely a burnt orange ting, Patia.

There's excellent lighting here too. She's taking a lot of them mostly into the sun, creating a glowing rim. I am not sure but she may be illuminating her subjects with a low-power frontal (secondary) light, using the sun as the main. But it's hard to tell

I played around with a shot I had to see if I could recreate that effect, using various layers of orange, warm filters, a few Nik effects, and a graduated ND lens on the sky. Here it is.

Elena Shumilova's technique?-dsc_0548_expt.jpg

**ksbryan0** · 03-28-2014, 06:10 AM

Greg, while I also thought she was using some supplemental lighting, I think I recall her being quoted in the interview saying she only uses natural/available light.

**patia** · 03-29-2014, 10:47 AM

Wow, GB1, that's quite an amazing transformation. Were you using Photoshop or Lightroom, or something else? I googled "Nik effects" and found this: Google Nik Collection. Is that what you're referring to? I'm definitely intrigued.

I've been doing photography for a long time and I'm a decent photo editor in Photoshop, but I've never strayed very far from traditional color. However, I've really been wanting to experiment and get more creative, in a way that still feels "natural." I think that's what appeals to me about Elena's work -- it has a magical glow, but still feels real.

**GB1** · 03-30-2014, 07:29 PM

Originally Posted by patia

Wow, GB1, that's quite an amazing transformation. Were you using Photoshop or Lightroom, or something else? I googled "Nik effects" and found this: Google Nik Collection. Is that what you're referring to? I'm definitely intrigued.

I've been doing photography for a long time and I'm a decent photo editor in Photoshop, but I've never strayed very far from traditional color. However, I've really been wanting to experiment and get more creative, in a way that still feels "natural." I think that's what appeals to me about Elena's work -- it has a magical glow, but still feels real.

Yep! It's Nik filters/effect/whatever and they work with Photoshop and probably Lightroom too. (They do not work with Corel Photo-Paint btw.) I have the whole Nik "Collection" because when Google bought them out they automatically gave everyone who had bought any of the individual effects the complete set (I had two of them at the time). Ones you might look into are "Color Efex Pro" (4 for me) and "Silver Efex Pro" (I have 2).. The Color pro has over 50+ effects, including ones for Landscape, Portrait, Nature, etc. Silver creates very smooth-looking black and whites.

I'd encourage you to experiment with the effects. There's sometimes a stigma associated with using them, but done right they can both enhance a normal shot, or allow you to create a completely new fantasy world.

As for this artist's work - not sure how she got the effect. I'm actually more interested in how she got definition in the foreground subjects with such bright backgrounds. There are multiple ways to do that; I take my hat off to her, cause her way she chose, is working super!

She's obviously a quick learner.

**armando_m** · 03-30-2014, 08:05 PM

The lightroom version of the nik software filters do work on any jpg or Tif, just rigt click on the file and select open with , if they are not listed automatically by windows you can browse to the location of the exe file.
Remember to make a copy, this method will alter the file , LR actually makes a copy for you unless "Edit original" is selected.

The exception to this is HDR efex , where you will need to run HDR efex and the from there do file open and select the multiple files that will be used to create the HDR image, and when exiting it will ask for the save file name.

**Edguy2014** · 07-19-2014, 01:49 AM

Hi
Best preset for Lightroom that has same look as Shumilova's photos is from this Summer Glow Fall preset set (Effect 8 and Effect 10): https://www.etsy.com/listing/1777686...w_type=gallery

Some samples from my photostream: