Dave Hill Effect – Kind Of….
by Jonathan on Feb.24, 2009, under Article, Guide, People, Photos
I followed a link on how to mimic the great style of Dave Hill. I think it looks pretty interesting and tried it. It kind of work and may need a tweak here and there to meet your preference.
Sample photos:
Here’s the steps to reproduce the effect:
- Start with flatten image layer called “Original”
- Duplicate the layer and run “High Pass Filter” (Filter -> Other -> High Pass) with radius of 4.0
- Set blending option to “Vivid Light” and flatten the image
- Duplicate the layer and run “High Pass Filter” with radius of 6.9
- Set blending option to “Color”, opacity to 40% then flatten the image
- Duplicate the layer and run “Gaussian Blur Filter” (Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian) with radius of 9.4 on the duplicate
- Also run “Add Noise” with 3% value on the duplicate
- Add a “Hide All” layer mask on the duplicate (Layer -> Add Layer Mask -> Hide all)
- Use magic wand/lasso/marquee/etc to select the eyes
- Modify the selection using feather by 6 pixels
- Inverse the selection
- Use 30% opacity large white brush and paint the whole pictures (the unselected eyes would make the eyes unpaintable)
- Flatten the image
- Use the “Unsharp Mask” (Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp mask) with the following settings: Amount – 100%; Radius – 30px; Threshold – 0;
NOTE: You may need to adjust some values if you’re working with smaller images.

