A Photoshop Tutorial: The Dragan Method Demystified
There are Photoshop actions that will do the Dragan method for you. If, however, you want to customize it, this is the way to do it.
First, open your image.
Next, go to “Image” on the top menu and choose “Mode.” Select “Grayscale.”
Next go back to “Image,” “Mode,” and now choose “Duotone.”
Change the “Type” of Duotone to “Quadtone.”
You’ll have to choose the colors you want to use by clicking on each ink color and manually choosing it from the color-picker. For mine, I used the following:
Ink 1: R:95 G:64 B: 50
Ink 2: R:47 G:62 B:70
Ink 3: R:228 G:190 B:127
Ink 4: R:239 G:254 B:253
Important: You will have to name your inks before saving. Be creative! Don’t feel tied down to the Crayola crayon names.
Next, save your Quadtone ink mix.
Click “Ok” and go back to the “Image” menu at the top. Go to “Mode” and change the image back to “RGB.”
Because the image is probably going to be pretty dark, you’ll probably need to add a Curves adjustment. Go to “Layer” on the top menu, choose “New Adjustment Layer” and then choose “Curves.”
Click on the middle of the curves line and adjust accordingly.
Click “Ok.”
Now, for the tricky part. In the “History” window above the “Layers” screen, you should be able to scroll through the adjustments you’ve made. If you scroll to the top, you’ll see your original image. Click on the image and then drag it to the first icon below the list of adjustments. This should give you the original image in a new window called “Duplicate State.” If you don’t see your history, you may need to go to the “Window” menu at the top and check “History.”
Go back to the photo you were working on before (the one that’s in Duotone). Scroll back through the History of this image and click on the last thing you did (should be the Curves layer). Make sure you do this or you’ll lose everything you’ve already done!
Now go back to the original, color image. Choose the “Move” tool in the upper left hand menu and drag the color image on top of the Duotone image. You might have to adjust it so that they overlap exactly. If you’re having trouble doing this, try changing the opacity of the color image so you can see the Duotone beneath to line up exactly.
Go ahead and duplicate the color image by dragging its layer to the “Duplicate”icon at the bottom of the “Layers” menu.
Choose the top-most layer and change the blending mode (the drop-down menu in the “Layers” menu) to “Hard Light.”
Change the Fill % of the “Hard Light” layer to 25%. Just click on the arrow next to “Fill” located below “Opacity” in the Layers menu. A scale will appear allowing you to change the percentage.
Choose the next layer down (the original color image) and, using the blending mode drop-down menu, change it to “Soft Light.”
Change the fill % of the “Soft Light” layer to 80% using the same method above.
Right-click on any of the layers in the “Layers” menu and choose “Flatten Image” from the menu that appears.
Go ahead and duplicate the image again by dragging the layer to the Duplicate icon.
To sharpen this image, we’re going to use the High Pass filter method. There are MANY ways to sharpen; this is only one, but one that I find quite effective. Go to “Filter” on the top menu, choose “Other” from the drop-down list, and then choose “High Pass.”
There’s no hard and fast rule about what number to use. Just make sure that your primary items are outlined well in the preview. I used 5 for this photo.
After clicking “ok,” make sure that your High Pass filter layer is highlighted in the Layers menu. Then change the blending mode of that layer to “Overlay.”
Right-click in the layers again and flatten image one last time.
You should end up with a draganized version of your original photo.
November 28th, 20072:09 pm at
Why didn’t you duplicate the image before starting the process and bypass all of the scrolling back business.
Nice idea but please simlify.
RON C
November 29th, 200712:59 am at
That’s a fair point, Ron. I usually forget to do that step myself and use the work-around, so I included the work-around as the default way.
November 29th, 20079:02 am at
Meh, if you know the basics of photoshop I think you know where the short cuts are in the tutorial, I rather have it be detailed than simplified. Great tutorial and beautiful photos, you are one creative photographer!
November 29th, 20071:30 pm at
Thanks so much, this is an invaluable resource!
from a pentaxian
November 30th, 20076:50 pm at
Good Lord, I can’t imagine how long it took you to put this together! Thanks!
November 30th, 20077:11 pm at
Great tutorial- for us newbies to photoshop, in the step where you talk about using the high pass filter, could you clarify that the number is actually the pixels from the high pass dialog box?
December 3rd, 20075:08 pm at
About this step in the tutorial;
Now go back to the original, color image. Choose the “Move” tool in the upper left hand menu and drag the color image on top of the Duo tone image. You might have to adjust it so that they overlap exactly. If you’re having trouble doing this, try changing the opacity of the color image so you can see the Duo tone beneath to line up exactly.
After you start dragging the color image, hold down the “Shift” key. When you got it over the Duo tone image, release the mouse button, and then release the Shift Key. Holding down the Shift key, perfectly centers the image, so as long as both images are the same size, they will align perfectly.