How do they create this effect?

look around the guy's ear in the 1st one, it's some kind of post-processing PS blur, with the background desaturated to boot, there's probably another layer for all that dodging/burning as well.

Looks like relatively low-contrast lighting combined with high-contrast processing/post-processing/printing.

i meant the 2nd one, sorry, but the first one with the old fellow's got it too, look on the left. The wrinkles and all are pumped up by local contrast, though could have also been colour adjustment for complementaries

http://innographx.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26233

This reminds me of so called "Lazlo effect", that, in my understanding, bears name of the photographer who presented results the effect quite skillfully in fred miranda forums (galleries: http://www.pictures-by-lazlo.com/ ). I could not find the original posts describing the method but quick googling yielded this:

http://www.dl-c.com/discus/messages/36/3776.html?1101868616

Email him and ask him!

It's been the latest "kitsch" for a couple of months now. Came along just after "light painting". Do you think Epson will develop a method for printing on black velvet for these images?

I think the fourth one is done with plain old lighting and contrast. The rest are plain ugly, but the Ochoa one is actually nice.

Looks like high pass, faded...

Wrinkled Old People. Its one of the most boring photographic cliches. Its been done to death for decades and decades. I feel sad for the photographer.

David, "Its been done to death for decades and decades. I feel sad for the photographer." Everything has been done to death for decades! And I feel sadder for you than them, at least they post some of their work for us to see and contemplate, you seem to be resting on your laurels from ages and ages ago. No one respects snide little remarks unless the snide one has something to back up their snideness.

I'm sad...because I wish I knew how to do it!

Tito, do you use PhotoShop?

First, give the picture a stronger than normal unsharp mask, maybe 150,1,0.

Then use highlights and shadows, click "more options", turn both highlights and shadows to zero, and midtone contrast up to 25.

Poof! You're there.

<Do you think Epson will develop a method for printing on black velvet for these images?>

Richard, that's brilliant...(wiping snorted coffee off of desk) thank you. I've been making the same remark and I think it was to some of this very same very skillfully done but over the top work. (except some of those edges, unless he wanted to create a halo, are not so well done.)

how long you all been digital? this "Dragan Technique" was quite the fodder for many threads a while back and resulted in probably most peoples' first try in actions on photoshop. For most folks that have been digital for a while - the mere mention of Dragan brings back nostalgic memories of trying to create the best action to copy it.
And yes it is all post processing techniques in ps.
ZIP
dragan_technique
www.atncentral.com/download.htm
you can do your own searches and find a ton of actions, but you will find that you need a good, sharp pic to start with and plenty of tweaking. Good luck.

Todd, you have to append the "http://" prefix to the URLs, otherwise they will be misinterpreted by the browser.

I think I got pretty close without too much effort. Just like Mike said, I took a portrait taken in the shade. First I Smart Sharpened it to show the pores (microcontrast). Then I unsharp masked with a larger radius (macrocontrast) to emphasize the wrinkles by "Fading To" Darken. To top it off, I added a steep "S" curve set to Luminosity to emulate the overall contrast and color.

Joseph, thank you for your instructions. I'll do it!