How can I replicate Nikon's Miniature Effect color and contrast look in post-processing?
Asked 6/14/2019
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I like Nikon's in-camera Miniature Effect, but I only want to copy its color and contrast styling, not the blur/tilt-shift part. In examples, the effect seems to boost saturation and contrast, and it may also add a warm yellow/amber or slight green color shift. What adjustments in post-processing can recreate that look?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
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There also appears to be either a color temperature shift towards amber/yellow as well as a white balance "correction" towards green, or a strong yellow color cast introduced by boosting the orange/yellow bands more than the other colors such as can be done with an Hue-Saturation-Luminance (HSL) tool. Some raw processing applications call such a tool HSB or HSV (the last letter is for 'brightness' or 'value' instead of 'luminance', which are all interchangeable in this context).
Such tools allow one to adjust the hue, saturation, and luminance (brightness) of each of eight color bands independently of one another. Most tools divide the color wheel into Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Aqua, Blue, Purple, and Magenta bands.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
7y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
A good match is to use selective color controls rather than only global saturation/contrast.
Based on the example and community feedback, Nikon’s Miniature Effect appears to combine:
- increased overall contrast
- increased saturation
- a warm yellow/amber shift
- possibly a slight green white-balance tint
- stronger boosting of orange/yellow tones than other colors
In post, try this workflow:
- Raise contrast moderately.
- Increase vibrance or saturation a bit.
- Warm the white balance slightly toward yellow/amber.
- If needed, add a small tint toward green.
- Use an HSL/HSB/HSV tool to selectively adjust color bands, especially orange and yellow. Increase their saturation and possibly luminance more than the other channels.
Most editors split colors into bands such as red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, purple, and magenta. Fine-tuning those individual bands is the key step for matching the look more closely than global sliders alone.
So the short answer: use contrast + saturation, then selectively boost orange/yellow in HSL and warm the white balance slightly.
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