Sin city style photo editing in photoshop - 1 hour challenge

As part of a series of personal challenges, this edit is something I've been meaning to do for ages which is to pay some homage to the amazingly lit and stylized sin city photos (and video) and that’s what I tried to achieve with this quit edit in photoshop. 

Shot earlier in the year with the awesome Bristol based model, Roughened Rose Bud in a choice 1970s gum rain jacket - I always intended to push this image in post production.  

I love grindhouse style posters and imagery and the whole sin city vibe resonated with me since the very first release. It was also at a time that I was loving doing more filmic images. So today's 1hour challenge was to recreate the stylistic finish so familiar with this film. 

Origins poster

So, looking at the different bits that made up a typical win city poster, it broke down to the following:​

- dynamically lit with a back light​

- moody sky / city scene​

- very desaturated image with just reds poking through​

- rain / smoke / grime​

- gritty finish / heavy contrast in mid tones. ​

Final image

Overall I'm pretty happy. As I said. This was a one hour challenge plus it's important to remember I had an already dynamically lit image in my library. there's always room for improvement and if i was to repeat again it would be more like a three hour edit to get right. This would include better rain development etc.