How to get this effect in Photoshop CS5

[syedimranhashmi]

Hi,

I've been trying to get this effect on some of my pictures (using CS5) without much success so far. Can someone please explain how to get this soft/pastel-ish effect ?

Disclaimer - I copied this picture for reference from Flickr, this is NOT my photo.

Thanks,
Imran

[Tito87]

Welcome to DPS. Hope this helps.
vintage look in photoshop cs5 - Buscar con Google

[SusanH1970]

It's really more lighting than post processing. This image is backlit (sun behind the subjects) and most likely a reflector was used to bounce light back on their faces and put light in their eyes. For the slightly desaturated look, most likely a vintage action/preset was run in Photoshop or Lightroom. But, it's mostly about the lighting.

For the processing, a good place to start is Coffeeshop vintage presets and actions. Rita's got some great ones, but they do need tweaking and need to be run on a properly exposed, well-focused shot to begin with. Hope this helps.

[sk66]

I don't have an image to show but you can push an image a long ways towards than with the "exposure" adjustment by pushing the gamma/offset sliders around.