teo crawford

November Preset: Dark tones of Tokyo

Published: December 6th 2024, 9:31:28 pm

For the month of November (apologies for the delay!!) I decided to craft a very moody look that you can apply to your photos. This look is based on a couple photographs I shot in Tokyo on a rainy day. There are so many fun ways to enhance the look of a rainy photo and one of them is exaggerating the dramatic atmosphere of the rain by toning the image quite darkly.

This preset will darken the shot and add a lot of contrast by pushing down especially the shadows. Shadow details will be lost, but that's the point - it's a stylistic choice and actually quite close in looks to what film does, which looses shadow details much easier than digital photos.

The colour this preset will give you leans towards the green tint while keeping a punchy orange and red hue in the skin which will nicely contrast the environment in an urban setting.

As the preview photographs suggest, I personally recommend this preset for low contrast scenes on overcast or (even better) rainy days. Photos that are already contrasty might be a little tricky here, because the preset will over exaggerate that contrast, hence I recommend this for more neutral scenes in somewhat flat lighting conditions. Also I would especially recommend this preset for urban settings, which feature a lot of grey tones, which will be slightly coloured by the preset. Photos that are already quite colourful might end up looking a little funky, just a warning.

As always, this preset is not a one-click solution to your editing. I highly recommend playing around with the Temperature, Tint and Exposure setting to adjust the preset to your particular image.

I've attached a .xmp file for you plus another .xmp file and a .dng file, which are both intended for mobile usage, in case you prefer to edit on a mobile device.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments or via a DM here on Patreon! :)

I hope you like the preset and have some fun with it! :D

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Teo