All right. Taking them down now.
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made some mild changes to this one (stronger contrast and faded blacks) and I think it’s getting close. The sky is off (which I didn’t want to change because I think this sky looks better), and the colors of the buildings in the midground are a bit off too (which I couldn’t fix)
_UFP0298.NEF.xmp (15.4 KB)
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Oh nice. I think it is almost there.aybe the blacks need to be raised a bit to give more detail in the shadows but the colors are nice. Maybe a tad under saturated.
I’ve been trying to find any info about parametric masking and styles. Is it possible to - say - create a parametric mask that grabs all the yellows, change them to orange, save that as a style and apply it to whatever image with the mask continuing to do its thing? Or would I have to “select” the yellow each time I apply the style to a new image?
You don’t even need a mask for that: color equalizer allows selective colour shifts.
I had to use masking so it is not totally preset-able.
I used color equalizer to make the orange saturated while desaturating most of the other colors. Then I created a kind of vignette with color balance rgb to crush the shadows on the periphery. And then used another color balance rgb after the tone mapper to achieve the faded blacks look (global luminance offset in 4-ways tab).
I masked the sky for adjustments as well as the center of the image to brighten the cars and the sign on the left.
_UFP0298.NEF.xmp (21.8 KB)
Another edit using tone equalizer to crush the shadows and a more standard vignette so the look is less faded and more saturated, desaturated the road and put a bit more local contrast:
_UFP0298_02.NEF.xmp (25.5 KB)
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Here is my attempt, based on what I saw in the preview thumbnails of the blvck paris preset. I used (in that order):
- tone equalizer to crush the shadows and increase contrast.
- two instances of color equalizer: one to shift yellow and red towards orange (to increase the amount of stuff that comes out as orange) and a second one to selectively desaturate.
- color balance rgb to increase saturation in the darker parts but desaturate highlights and to add a very subtle bluish tint to the shadows.
- filmic rgb for tone mapping and further contrast
- rgb curve to lift the blacks a bit (note that I had to move it after filmic in the pipeline for that)
_UFP0298_0.NEF.xmp (11.2 KB)
Edit: looking at it now, the orange parts should probably be a bit brighter.
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As kofa said, this could also be done with color equalizer without masking but generally saving presets with masks works as well. I actually have some presets like that (i.e. for adjusting specific colours in some way). I typically quickly check the mask after applying it, to see whether it needs some slight image-specific adjustments, but most of the time it works well.
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@gigaturbo Love it!!! So close - I probably would have just one issue with your version. The whole image has a warm tone to it. And I think the roads/gray tones need to stay neutral for this to work. Maybe a slight adjustment on the white balance does the trick. I’m gonna try it later with your XMP.
@luator Your version looks nice but I feel you lost a bit too many details in the shadows and it’s very “black”. The clarity could be higher on the buildings in the midground and there’s still a bunch of haze. 
About the parametric masks: I was wondering what would be the better or maybe not “better” way but the most functional one for such a preset that needs to work for multiple images. I know that color equalizer works but for a sky it could be a good idea. Maybe have a parametric mask on a color balance RGB or color equalizer module that just handles the saturation and brightness of the sky (given that it is somewhat blue or cyan). Or it could be a module that can be activated or deactivated if needed…just playing around with some thoughts.
Do you guys have any recommendations about how to safe a style correctly? I was playing yesterday and found an edit I really like (I’m gonna post it later) but I couldn’t get the style to work correctly on other images. I tried saving it from the light table with both reset on and off and also from the history panel. Module order was always checked. But somehow the color equalizer settings weren’t saved and I don’t know why.
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I generally use color calibration on a neutral color and then change the global temperature/tone with color balance rgb and rgb primaries. I added blue in the shadows and set a blue tint on the neutral colors with rgb primaries:
_UFP0298_03.NEF.xmp (25.4 KB)
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Nice!! I think that’s the one. And interesting approach using the primaries. I didn’t think of that as an option. I’ll check it out thanks so much!
Boris uses them in his videos and we post those here… is that not borderline similar??
The same reasoning applies.
Given the language on their site I see no reason why the images cannot be used…
Signature Edits grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Signature Edits for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Signature Edits, but this license does not include the right to compile photos from Signature Edits to replicate a similar or competing service.
If anything they encourage it and provide suggested means of providing credit
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Did you read my comment above?
“I don’t want to pay a lawyer to find out”
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Hosting their images in pixls.us similar service does seem to be against their license. I see no benefit of uploading their images here. You can post a link to their website for folks to download it.
Ok I think we have solutions for the style edit. @gigaturbo got really close. upon closer inspection the solution with double color equalization also works well but needs refinement because I still got some blues and greens in some areas.
I came up with this and I don’t know what you guys think.
UFP-Edit.xmp (50.3 KB)
Here’s the comparison of the 3 (left gigaturbos version, middle mine, right LR Mobile)
Could you guys try to add the history of my edit to another image to see how it behaves? I’m still struggling with using the style on other images but I’m gonna try to find some that work well with this style.
EDIT
Here is a selection of photos with the style applied:
I found that if I copy and paste the style from the original image (Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V), it works quite well. I might have to adjust color calibration and exposure but that’s it.
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I agree the link should be fine but given this is the upload screen and anyone uploading I believe needs an account at the service…they have been told the conditions of the upload…
Also then are we going to scrub this site of any images derived from the signatures site… I am sure there is one post going back that uses a lady in a red dress that comes from this site and was used in discussions about filmic I believe and there are others. I am sure if one went through things here post by post maybe the lounge or whatever there are snippets of images posted from a variety of sources that could be equally “in violation” of these criteria…
I am not in any way arguing or advocating for any change but more so exploring how content scrutiny here is determined … also in hopes of not violating it and causing any issues in any of my future posts… likely its in our terms of agreement 
I think using the images for educational purposes is fine. Nobody here is trying to offer them as downloads, use them commercially or selling them or saying that it’s their intellectual property. I at least was just using them to test a preset on different styles of photo so I think it does not go against any rules and should not turn into a huge discussion.
Don’t upload files that aren’t yours or that aren’t under a friendly license like creative Commons.
CC is good becuse the intent is widely agreed upon, where as the extremely short license on signature edits likely hasn’t been tested by lawyer. This is the same as it has always been.
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All good but I think if this is an absolute its going to require a lot more scrutiny…just one example from this lounge post…
Clearly stating in the actual screenshot for personal use only…
And I think we have lots of this type of content esp going back years…
Don’t get me wrong I hear you about the lawyers etc but to be safe as you intend then only links of non-CC licensed material should be posted, no jokes no social media snippets etc etc…
Given the guidelines here… would it be acceptable to post these images here for discussion if the sample credit parameters are provided or would you say only a link should be posted here…
Open Image Collections | LIFE Photo Archive.
This is taking away from the actual post topic so enough said from me…sorry this stretched out…