In 2003 Polish physicist Andrzej Dragan picked up a camera and started creating some fascinating portraits that expressed the depth of the person and their character by enhancing facial features usually hidden away in modern photography.

His process, which became know as the Dragan effect typically involves high micro contrast portraits that emphasize the detail of the human face. Wrinkles, pores, lines and dark eyes are all accentuated  to create a greater of level of depth in the subject.

Achieving this effect in Photoshop is fairly straight forward but with most techniques each photo must be taken on an individual basis.

The Source Image

Source Files

Old Polish father portrait

Step 1: Getting Started

1. Download the image from the link below
2. Open up the source image in Photoshop

Step 2: Levels

1. In the layers panel click on the icon to add a new Levels adjustment layer (alternatively you can click on the half full circle at the bottom of the layers panel and select Levels from the menu
2. Depending on the current contrast of your photo enter a black point value of between 30-50. In this example I used a value of 40
3. Leave the midpoint and white point levels as their default values

Step 3: Hue / Saturation

1. In the layers panel click on the icon to add a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (alternatively you can click on the half full circle at the bottom of the layers panel and select Hue/Saturation from the menu
2. In the adjustment layer’s properties enter a saturation value of -50

Step 4: Curves

1. In the layers panel click on the icon to add a new Curves adjustment layer (alternatively you can click on the half full circle at the bottom of the layers panel and select Curves from the menu
2. Click in the very middle of the graph to create a control point
3. Click again twice on either side of the middle point to create two new control points
4. Drag the first (lowest) control point down slightly. This will add contrast in the dark areas
5. Drag the last (highest) point up slightly. This will add contrast in the lighter areas
6. You should now have a slight S curve in your curves graph and see much more contrast in your image

Step 5: Add Detail (High Pass Filter)

1. In the Layers panel select the main (background) layer and duplicate it (right click Duplicate Layer or Ctrl+J)
2. Drag the new layer copy to the top of the layer stack, above the adjustment layers we added in the previous steps
3. Double click on the new layer to open the Layer Styles
4. Set the Blending mode to Overlay
5. Press OK
6. From the Filter menu choose Other -> High Pass
7. Adjust the radius slider at the bottom of the dialog until you see good amount of detail coming through but not too much. In this example I chose a value of 4.5
8. Press OK

Step 6: Burn the details

We will be using a non-destructive dodge and burn for this tutorial. If you are interested in the details check out the Non-destructive dodge and burn tutorial

1. In the layers panel select the top layer
2. From the Layer menu choose New -> Layer…
3. Enter Dodge and Burn for the name
4. Set it’s blend mode to Overlay
5. Check ‘Fill with Overlay-neutral color (50% gray) at 100% opacity
6. Press OK

1. In the layers panel, select the new (top gray) layer
2. Select the Brush tool (B)
3. Press D to set the default colors (black and white)
4. Use the X key to choose the Black foreground color
5. Paint with a low opacity (5-10%) over the areas you would like to make darker such as the wrinkles, eyes, facial hair etc.

That’s all there is to it, this technique works well with elderly subjects due to the added depth of their appearance but it can also work very well for younger subjects.. why not give it a try and post your results in the comments?