IT168 Review Nowadays, social activities through the Internet have become a living habit of contemporary young people. Not to mention the popularity of purely social apps such as Weibo, WeChat, Momo, and Tantan, the trend of national live broadcasts is also sweeping across the entire young population. In such a general environment, I wonder if you have noticed a phenomenon. In WeChat Moments, there are always people who post some delicious food, beautiful scenery or some very artistic photos. But you are obviously familiar with the things they eat and the places they go, but the photos you take don’t have the same “taste” as others?

In fact, the gap between you and them in real life is not big. After graduation, everyone basically earns a salary of 3,000 or 4,000, and they all like to eat at a roadside stall when they get home from get off work at night. Not much better than anyone else. But the key is that others can "pretend", but you can't! So when you go out to parties or travel, you should put more thought into post-processing the photos you take. This is the key to whether you can "attract people's attention" in your circle of friends. In this article, the editor will share the simplest post-production color correction techniques to use your mobile phone to adjust photos into Japanese film style. The post-production tool we use is VSCO, which can be used on both Android and Apple phones.

▲Japanese film style photos (pictures from the Internet)

▲Japanese film style photos (pictures from the Internet)

Japanese style photos have one characteristic, that is The picture is fresh, the colors are relatively uniform, and the photo will be slightly overexposed, making it look clean and comfortable at first glance. When it comes to film, the label "retro" is naturally inseparable, and this is what pseudo-literary youths are most keen to label themselves. Therefore, adjusting the photo to the style of Japanese film can effectively enhance the quality of the photo itself.

▲Japanese film style photos (pictures from the Internet)

Post-production ideas:

1. Choose a suitable filter. A filter is actually like a formula. For novices, you may not be able to find the problem in the photo at first and determine your own post-production ideas, so directly applying filters is the simplest and most crude way.

2. Increase exposure appropriately. We also mentioned before that Japanese-style photos will feel slightly overexposed. This can improve the purity of the photo and make the subject's skin look fairer.

3. Reduce the contrast appropriately. Contrast can be understood as the ratio of the whitest and darkest levels of light and dark parts in a photo. The greater the contrast, the stronger the contrast between black and white in the photo. Japanese photos strive for mild and comfortable colors, and should not have too bright colors to steal the spotlight.

4. Reduce the saturation appropriately. The higher the saturation, the more intense the color of the photo will be. Additionally, reducing saturation can create a washed-out look, an element often seen in vintage photos.

5. Add sharpening. After adding sharpening, the lines in the photo can be clearer and the clarity can be improved.

6. Appropriately use fading and grain to polish the film look of the photo.

Let’s take a look at the actual steps through an example.

▲Comparison diagram before and after color adjustment

Step 1: Select the E5 filter that comes with VSCO.

After choosing the E5 filter, we found that the overall style of the photo has obviously become more retro film style. However, the backlit part of the characters in the photo is dark, and the difference between light and dark is relatively large, so it needs to be adjusted further.

Step 2: Increase exposure and reduce contrast.

After increasing the exposure compensation and reducing the contrast, we found that the photos indeed became smaller and fresher, more inclined to the Japanese style. But the problem that followed also appeared, that is, the entire picture was obviously white.

Step 3: Increase saturation and sharpness

In order to solve the whitening problem, I can increase some saturation, which can make the colors of the picture more vivid. There is a question that needs to be explained here. In the post-production ideas at the beginning of the article, I mentioned that generally Japanese film-style photos need to reduce the saturation, but why did I increase the saturation here? In fact, the E5 filter itself significantly reduces the saturation of the photo. After our post-optimization, we adapted to local conditions, so some saturation needs to be restored.

Finally, the sharpened photo is basically complete. If you still want to create an old photo effect, you can add some fade and grain. I’m posting the original film here so you can compare.

▲The original photo (the page has compressed the photo, it is recommended to view the original image for comparison)

▲The post-processed photo (the page has compressed the photo, it is recommended to view the original image for comparison)

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Summary:

In fact, each photo has different content, different colors, and different light and dark contrasts, and the specific parameters that need to be adjusted later will also be different. However, for photos of the same style, the general post-production ideas can be determined. When everyone is proficient, the subsequent steps will usually appear in their mind when they see a photo, so you still need to try harder. Welcome to follow me on Sina Weibo @ALIANGdll. I will often share my post-production experience and some shooting tips.