The Lucis Art Effect Part 1

I only like the Lucis Art look about 5% of the time I see it. But when it works, it works. It seems to work best when there are lots of details, can stand a bump in local contrast, or fits with a more illustrative look.In the following image, I was going for a look similar to that used in “300″, except in black & white.

But I feel it is an expensive plugin, when I use it so sparingly. So it’s nice to know that there are ways to achieve a very similar look, with the programs you already have.

Here is my final image. In Part 1, I am going to show you how to get most of the way here. In Part 2, I will show you the steps to refine and finish the image.

To do this effect, you need Photoshop CS3 or CS4 or Lightroom 2.x. I used a Raw file. You could use a JPEG as well, but because of the extreme adjustments for this effect, you are better off with a Raw file.

Open the image in Photoshop or Lightroom. A Raw file should open automatically in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) if you doubleclick on the file. Once open, you want to start with the following settings. I am showing Lightroom, but the settings and the order of the settings are exactly the same in ACR—it just LOOKS different.

That is your starting point. You can fiddle with the settings until your particular image looks right. But those are the setting that took the following image . . .

. . . and made it into this:

That’s the first part. Unfortunately, these settings often cause unwanted edge effects. I will point those out and show how to fix them in Part 2.

See you next week!