I've been chasing a 70s look in my digital files lately: muted tones, a little grit, and a cyan shift that reads as vintage film. Here are the steps I use to get there, in the order I do them.
Start with a flat raw file
The example is a shot of our model Isabella in Dumbo, Brooklyn, by the Manhattan Bridge archway. She wore a retro-inspired outfit, and the light was diffused daylight bouncing off cobblestones and brick.
The raw file opens in Adobe Lightroom Classic looking flat, with little contrast or color. That's what you want. A raw file holds the most image data, so you can push colors, recover highlights and lift shadows without ugly artifacts.
First I check exposure and color cast. Is it too dark or too bright? Does it lean green from fluorescent streetlights or yellow from indoor lamps? In Dumbo, in open daylight, the cast was close to neutral.
White balance and exposure
These are corrections, not creative choices. Get the colors true first, then bend them.
For white balance I click the eyedropper on a neutral grey area, like a patch of concrete or a grey wall. If there isn't one, I cycle through the presets (Daylight, Cloudy, Shade) and fine-tune with Temp and Tint. For Isabella's shot I went a little warmer than the camera's auto setting, which offsets the cool blue of open shade without turning the image sepia.
For exposure, I want the histogram sitting in the middle with no clipped highlights or crushed shadows. I set the main Exposure slider first, then use Highlights and Shadows to recover detail. For a vintage look I often underexpose slightly and lift the shadows more than usual, which softens the contrast the way older film stocks do. I also pull Whites down a little and push Blacks up. That compresses the dynamic range and gives a gentle, faded look without losing detail.
Shift color in the HSL panel
The HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance) panel lets me change one color range without touching the rest of the image.
On the Hue tab I move the greens toward yellow and the blues toward cyan. Nudging Green Hue left makes leaves more olive or mustard. Pushing Blue Hue well to the left gives the dusty cyan. A little goes a long way. In Isabella's shot the sky was a key element, and shifting its blue toward cyan made it look like a weathered postcard instead of a clean digital sky. I sometimes pull the Orange and Yellow hues slightly toward red to keep skin tones warm.
On Saturation, vintage film is often slightly desaturated, so I lower the Blues and sometimes the Greens. If Magentas or Purples are distracting, I lower those too. I may raise Oranges and Yellows a touch so skin tones still hold up against the muted background.
On Luminance I darken the Blues and Greens slightly for depth, and sometimes brighten the Oranges and Yellows to lift skin.
Add grain and a profile
Modern digital cameras are very clean, too clean for this look, so I add grain in the Effects panel. Too little won't show and too much looks digital. I start with an Amount of 20-30, then adjust Size and Roughness. For fine, subtle grain I keep Size around 25-35 and Roughness around 50-60. For a grittier look I raise both. Grain also breaks up the smooth digital gradients, so the image looks printed from a negative.
I sometimes try one of the built-in "Artistic" or "Vintage" profiles in the Profile Browser, then pull the Amount slider down because I rarely use them at 100%. In the Camera Calibration panel I may shift the Red Primary Hue slightly toward orange or the Green Primary Hue toward yellow. The change is subtle, and it's hard to get any other way.
Last, I adjust contrast on the Tone Curve. Either a very gentle "S" curve, or a lifted black point for the faded look of old photographs.
Match the grade to the shoot
The grade only works if the rest of the picture agrees with it. On Isabella's shoot, the retro outfit, the classic car parked nearby and her small smirk all fit the 70s palette. Wardrobe, location and pose do as much as the sliders.
I work in passes: adjust, step away, come back with fresh eyes. Does it still look authentic? Is the cyan too strong? Is the grain distracting?
Shooting a look like this with us
At Dante's Models we can build a specific look like this for a model portfolio, a fashion editorial or a commercial campaign. We talk through the concept first, then shoot and grade to match.
Try it yourself
Start with a photo you like, maybe one shot on a bright day in Central Park or against the walls in Bushwick. Push the sliders, make mistakes, and see what you get. The goal is to understand why each move works, then make the look your own.
To book a photoshoot, go to dantet9.com. We also have free dantet9.com/tools for photographers and models.
Cover photo by maricabooysen on Pixabay.
