By Jon Canfield

Last month I wrote about creating HDR (High Dynamic Range) photographs. This is a process in which you merge several different exposures together to get an expanded amount of detail. There’s been a lot of interest on the web lately about using HDR to create what many people are calling the “Grunge” look. These are images that are processed beyond the ordinary to have a nearly illustrative look.

While HDR still gives you the most flexibility in creating this type of imagery, you can create a similar effect with a single image. You just need to process it with extreme settings.

Please note that I make no claim as to creating this method, and I’m really not sure who did create it, but it’s a look that I found interesting and decided to explore.

I’m using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for this example, but you could do the same thing in Adobe Camera Raw or, most likely, many of the other RAW converters. I prefer to work with RAW images for this type of editing as there is more information to work with, and the edits are not destructive – I can always go back and process the image in a more normal fashion.

To start with, select the image you want to process. Now, do something you’d never otherwise consider doing:

Move the Recovery slider all the way to the right so it reads 100.

Move the Fill Light slider all the way to the right so it reads 100.

Move the Clarity slider all the way to the right so that it reads 100.

Move the Vibrance slider, you guessed it, all the way to the right.

Right now, the image is looking pretty bad, and you’re probably thinking I’m nuts. But, this is where the magic begins.

Move the saturation slider to the left (I threw you on that one, right?) to bring the saturation way down. It looks best if you leave a little color in the image, so don’t go all the way to -100.

Now, increase the Blacks to build some black back into the image. (You might have to play with the Exposure setting to get something that looks right.)

The final step for me is to use the Vignette control to darken the corners, which really enhances the feel.

While this works great with some images, you’ll need to evaluate what you’re trying to accomplish. The samples shown here were good subjects since they had an old and neglected look to begin with. I certainly wouldn’t try this on a portrait.

Finally, I print the image on a luster or gloss paper. This is one of the few times I’ll use gloss media, but I find that it gives a nice contrast and usually helps to show the fine details in the image