No 5. How I "Grunge"
1.Choose a single picture with good detail and dynamic tonal range. “Must be Raw”.
2.Open Photomatix Pro 3.
3.Go to File - select your picture - open. (At this point Photomatix will advise you this will be a pseudo HDR because there is only one image)
4.Process as a normal HDR with details enhancer, avoiding halos excessive grain etc. Click ok to apply the tone mapping and save as a 16 bit Tiff.
5.Now open the saved image in CS3.
6.Create a new layer from the background and apply shadow/highlight to taste, avoiding halos and grain.
7.Run noise Ninja over this layer to smooth it out or CS3 noise reduction.
8.Crop your image if required and apply basic aesthetic corrections, dust bunnies etc.
9.Apply a curves layer and drag the bottom of the curve down to increase blacks and push the centre of the curve up to increase midtones.
10.Apply a hue/saturation layer and increase/decrease colours.
11.If this is a colour picture apply high pass sharpening and you’re done.
12.For Black and White use the CS3 B/W filter, scroll through the presets, I usually use the high contrast red filter.
13.Add a curves layer and push the contrast to taste.