Post Processing: Details
Amanda Diaz
Lessons
Class Introduction & Styles of Photography
29:07 2Finding Inspiration
24:33 3Natural vs Studio Lighting
24:41 4Mood Boards
14:12 5Your Creative Team
17:43 6Finding and Working with Models
19:36 7Do It Yourself
14:16Shoot: Ethereal Part 1
39:20 9Shoot: Ethereal Part 2
34:16 10Shoot: Conceptual - Butterflies
36:08 11Shoot: Conceptual - Feathers
32:02 12Sourcing DIY Fashion Materials
11:05 13Negativity & Criticism
21:49 14How To Deal With Negativity
22:53 15Prepping a DIY Shoot
26:31 16Shoot: DIY Shoot
30:36 17Shoot - DIY Shoot Continued
16:33 18Shoot: Painterly Portrait - Flowers
24:51 19Shoot: Painterly Portrait - Sequins
37:07 20Getting Your Work Noticed
30:16 21Submitting Your Work
38:19 22Shoot: Leather and Spikes Beauty
37:42 23Prep for the Victorian Beauty Shoot
29:39 24Shoot: Victorian Beauty
13:49 25Post Processing: Skin Retouching
28:31 26Post Processing: Details
28:08 27Post Processing: Ethereal Shoot Image
31:51 28Post Processing: Beauty Shot
20:03 29Post Processing: Darken Lashes and White Skin
23:28 30Post Processing: Fashion
31:25 31Consistency In Your Images
27:48Lesson Info
Post Processing: Details
That there's a little patch of like it just looks like there's no eye shadow here. I'm not sure what happened, but I want to fill that in, so I'm just going to sample from the eye shadow that's already in there, and when I talked about cleaning up our changing makeup, color and stuff, I'll show you guys that too, but more that'll be more like on a portrait shot, something a little closer up that wash all the detail a little bit better, so bring the capacity down flow is a one hundred percent hardness is always a zero. I will just sample from there bring the opacity up a little bit more, just filling in the color here a little bit see if I helped. So when I was zoomed in, it was it looked ok, but now, it's, not really, so I'm going to bring the opacity of two hundred and see if I can do that again and just keep the texture as it is from up here. Amanda, do you have any opinion on editing at one hundred percent versus editing at a you know, zoom more zoomed out? If you're not going to be...
printing it large, do you have a standard at which you, you know, I just do the same thing? Over and over and over, I always a lot of my editing is sort of the same steps like what I'm doing here, I'm just going to keep doing all this stuff over and over and over again, but in different ways, and I zoom in and out no matter what it is if it's just for even, um, just for the web or just for my portfolio on the website, because even though like this is so close up and you don't, you know you're not really noticing things like this. When I zoom out, I see it, I still I will just sit there and stare at it, and I notice it if you guys like, I don't know, I can see it, I could see this little hole of no I shadow there and because I know what's there, I have to edited or all would just stare at it all the time, but yeah, just I do that, I just say muff it all the time, zoom in and out in and out and you know, and it helps refresh your eye a little bit, too. So you're not getting doing too much editing in one spot, and then it looks terrible after and so yeah, I think I'm good with that. Probably find from me and then I just ah, a lot of times I look around the image just to see little things that I don't want their um I see like there's little fuzzies in her hair, so I'll just use the spot healing brush and get rid of that see what else is there? Her nails are good, I don't have to clean those up sometimes the girls they have like little hang meals and things like that even stuff like that I need to clean it off it just drives me bonkers but okay, so I'm going to rotate my image back to the way I wanted it and just kind of zoom out and see how I like what's going on so far in your face looks nice and clean and so because I flattened it, I used to go up back here to my history and just see the difference, so I'm pretty happy with what that's come on s o far now this image that I've used I've lost the flowers in here so I can either just crop that out or try to fill it in with this because of the flowers it's a little bit hard tio teo clone it in and for it to look natural so I'll probably end up just cropping it out a lot of times I will fill things in, but usually when it some outside and it's a little easier to camouflage it out with this, the brightness triggers off and it triggered, like, trickles off nichols dark into the corner, so if I was to try toe fill the senate would just be a lot of work that I don't want to deal with, so I'm just going to end up cropping that guy out. So, um, cropping, I actually like I don't really I'm not big on like, specific size, I will do fixed ratio when it's for print and I know what's going to be like in a magazine or something, I have to stick to that eight and a half by eleven I think the measurements are, but for this, I'm not going to I'm just going to go to normal and crop as I see fit, so even if it's the square, if I like it, I'm just going to do it, so I'm gonna start here where I don't want that on dh I want to make sure it keeps this, um the same rectangular shape, so I'm not going to just crop it this way. I wantto fix that composition at the same time, and so I'm tryingto just keep it even from the bottom compared to the side of what I'm getting rid of, so I usually just I it that way when it's not specific measurement and then I'll crop it, see how it looks if I don't like it, then I'll crop it a little bit more and so I probably just going to get rid of a little bit of this side of the chair just because I feel like there's too much of dead space on that side, so crop that a little bit more it's good there. So now I will do a little bit of dodging and burning, and I said that I would change these colors on the flowers, so after some dodging and burning, I will do a little bit of that. And then andi, this image would be good. I'm fine. Oh, I'm you know what actually I'll do is probably at a texture, just a kind of ok soul. Now we're going to do some dodging and burning to layer a new layer, gonna call it a and b and that's just for dodge and burn me going at it fill fifty percent grey and my mode is normal. Now. This just looks the same as it did when I did the frequency separation it's creating a greatly over top and you'll see afterwards why I'm doing this for my blending mode, I go into soft light and now it's back to normal before I go into this uh well, no, I'm sorry. Never mind I'll show you there after it's something else but um with dodging and burning now the point of dodging you guys dodging burn yeah, you also okay. So the point of it for people who haven't done it before and don't know what it's what it's for is dodging and burning is to help bring out the highlights and to help darhk in the shadows and kind of like a contouring of the skin. Yeah, or I dodge and burn on the clothing as well, like I will when I edit later on with the girl with the red jacket so I do dodging and burning this is kind of the last bit of the last steps that I do. Um I will even like how you you'd asked us about the eyes I don't remember. Yeah, um with my eyes uh her eyes are really beautiful, but say I just want to bring the eyes out a little more you have to be very, very careful doing that. Sometimes I see eyes being edited and they look like aliens. It's too much like this is why I say continually zoom in and out because you need to keep that fresh some people can go overboard there zoomed right in the eye like this and they're like, you know, dodging the hell I mean yeah dodging the hell out of it and then it ends up looking like a reptilian like a reptile creature something so it's good to just make sure that you don't overdo it when I dodge and burned my hardness this is another simplified way of doing it I don't create five different layers to work off I have my one gray layer and I work on that hardness is always a zero and the brushes is of soft brush and I will start with the ice so I'll just here on to score off of this and I the radius of the brush like the size of the brush I like it to fit perfectly within her eye and as I'm going click so it's really small in here and then as I'm going I will expand the the brush too so it fits because I don't want to keep stroking over it because it just ends up being overdone and I have to keep going backwards so not every time I don't don't always do it perfectly mid tones is always selected for this the way I do it thie exposure should never be past about seventeen sixteen exposure will sit usually from me between like fourteen to seventeen it's a very very small window when you're dodging and burning it's better that you take your time and dodging burn rather than bring the exposure way up and it's like it's just it's sometimes it's too much so it's better just little bits at a time you know a little upon little pre set of from pre set but and then the pro protect tones is is checked so I'm going to just start on the eye I'm not just one little thing and I'll be selected and just that little tiny bit has already brightened her eye up flicking back there okay, I'm gonna call over share now remember to another thing you need to remember is do not try so if you guys look right here this whole area of her face is darker right don't if there are shadows you gotta pay attention to that when you're editing don't try to make both of the eyes the same exact brightness same exact color because their shadow here this I should stay darker a little tiny bit so you gotta pay attention to shadows around when you're editing like especially around the eyes don't don't try to even everything out especially when there's it's not even light so just watch out for that I do a little bit more and I think that's good sometimes if you dodge too much you can go back and burn on my exposure here is it about fourteen? It should be fine I'm gonna go back into the center of her eye and just burn it back in a little bit because I feel like I I dodged a little bit too much in there, not looks good on all d select it and that's fine, you don't need to bring it up anymore, even even then, I feel like that might be a little too bright, you know? It just depends on your preference, I guess, but so I'm going to burn it just a little tiny bit more, just one stroke overtop and that's good and I'm going to show you guys after dodging and burning how I make the eyes a little more glassy just to have that doll effect. So now I am going to rotate the image again because of the way she is I need to see it in a proper on position, so I'm gonna rotated back counterclockwise so I can see her this way and so I will continue with dodging and when you're dodging now I always start with dodging I go over all of the light areas that I want to bring out you still you have to be very careful doing this. You can overdo it, it's always just a little bit of time. So centre of thea forehead you know what? Before I continue with this, I'm initial them something I want them to see this so that I created this for the course to show people, um the reason I picked up like how I picked up and learned about dodging burning more of an easier way than just you know figure it out is I watched my makeup artists a lot when makeup artist teo contouring and highlighting it's a certain skill that they do to create features on the face and dodging burning is basically the same thing but in photo shop so when you dajun burned this is a picture I hope she doesn't kill me but anyway so this's one of my models that I had worked with previous so we did a beauty shoot this is edited but this is contouring highlighting this is what a makeup artists will do when she's trying to bring out features on the face this is something the you guys can actually go create take one of your photos and create this on them and you can go look at this this will help you so much it helped me understand dodging and burning a lot easier so all of these dark shadows here around the jaw coming down the frame the bone of the nose up here this is cornering it's creating a shadow cast over the face and bring out the highlights all of the highlights here is all where she was already lit up and this is where I want him trying to strengthen the dark response under the lip under here even I forgot the patches should have added a patch there all down the nose if you have a makeup artist, sit and watch them watch what they're doing when they're contouring, highlighting if they will do it because you pick up editing tips that way, it helps a lot. So this is laywer I've named it contour, not burr blur, so I'm gonna blur it. I'm sorry burn my goodness what's wrong with me. So a make up artist will call this contour, but this is called burning and photoshopped this layer here, it would be highlighting, but it would be called dodging and photo shop so it's just something to remember and if I d select that and that you just see the photo as it is, another thing you could do just to play around is blurred and it will soften up as I'm blurring and you see it's disappearing. But it's adding, those shadows just like as if I was applying makeup and this is what happens when the make up artists is blending it all together. So this is just a little tip for people who are trying to understand it a little better. It helps you to kind of figure out that obviously this is not how I added the photo, but I'm just showing you guys. Yeah so how to do it so anyway so that's not really know imagine all my goodness and be like what's this girl doing anyways okay, so I just wanted to show you that before I went on about dodging and bring too much more and I will keep dodging and I'm just going to know now that you have seen the actual like x exaggerated spots where it is you can now when I'm dodging you'll remember I'm coming down bone of the nose on the forehead under the eye below the cheekbone that kind of thing and this helps a lot with guys because you know a lot of guys they don't know about makeup they don't care obviously so this is very helpful especially for them all right? I gotta just use my violence of going there couple folks graito and cindy m be wondering whether you edit out the veins in the eyes of the white I will I will I'll go in there and those little bits later on yeah I edit thumb but not to complete white I leave a little bit in there I don't want looking um to like plastic right? So I will clean up a little bit of that and then all leave a little bit of or I'll just even like lightened the veins so it's not so strong um so all I'm doing here is looking for all the highlighted areas a david under the nose even right here, your eye will start to like remember where these things are you'll start to see it a lot easier as you're doing it and you don't again you don't want to keep doing it too much so there's just some dodging happening there I will d select thes and you'll see right here you can see what you've done and it's creating this creepy looking, um, image. So anyway, so I'm gonna keep going and I dodge and burn on the same layer all the time. I don't I don't, it doesn't matter to me, I don't need separate layers for it, but that's just me don't you know, follow me if you guys do it another way. All right, so now I'm gonna burn and I've selected the burnt arm no see always does this. Anyways, I've selected the burn tool and I'm gonna just go over there. My exposure again protect tones is checked fourteen percent. I'm happy with that, so I'm gonna burn back in those corners a little bit, all right? And even on the eye shadow, I'm gonna darken under there. I want to really bring that out I'm assuming, you know, all of this stuff is so basic and simple, I like I don't like things getting too complicated, but it makes a big difference on the image in the end so, um right here I've lost a little bit of the shadow her jawline so I'm gonna burn a little bit of that back in so we can see the separation from her neck to her face and you can even if you really want the eyes to pop, create a really small size brush and trace around the rim of the eye, right? Yeah, um, I was wondering since is an ethereal shoot, I can't see that you're you know, you're doing it so it's very soft it's not very hard edges, you know, sort of like some shadows, but do you edit two more harshly with, you know, images were like high fashion, whether you know, harder edges and do you also read it that way? We're like your brush, you know, any harder? What? Yeah, I edit the same way I do the same things over and over, and it just depends on to what extent on the image that I'm working on, okay? Like I play with colors dodging and burning textures, all that kind of thing, so I'll do select that, and now you guys see you're seeing like details of her face there, and if you see the brush hopes or have highlighted where I've traced around, the hardness has changed um depending on what area of the skin so up here on the forehead it was a soft brush and it's a wider it's a bigger spot but down this part of the nose all around the eye, the brush is a little harder because it's a smaller area so you really have to keep playing with your hardness and your brush size? Well hardness not so much but brush size yes, so I'll keep going and I'm going to do some of that on her dress and on her arms so I can get some details back on this dress all right, so so I'm just looking for the little areas here sorry, I gotto tell us a little bit to find out where those darker spots are and I'm just going to go over them if my burn tool and I do this fast, it doesn't have to be as meticulous as it is when I'm on their own skin just already here finish with the dress I can't even bring the exposure up a little more for this it's not so bad like I would just suggest keeping it low when you're doing it on this skin but on the clothing if I'm trying to bring out certain details, I think it's safe to bring it up a little bit with the exposure just so you don't have to not doing too much of it or over I just felt like I lost detail in the dress they're sold if you see here it's just added that and just that has made a slight difference I probably don't need to do to too much highlighting on the dress because it's already pretty bright so this is a good way for when you know they're wearing bright clothing and stuff, but you still want to keep your detail it's a good way to bring those details back in using the dodging and burning tools and I think that's okay, I'm good with that, okay, so I'll flatten this guy and now I'm gonna I have pre sets that I use it I mean, sorry textures that I've created and I use those a lot um when it's shots like this and so I'll just play, I'll show you guys how I use my textures on dh and then we will yeah, I gotta open up the file so oh my so I will open maybe a romance tic toc flight he was on soft light mode. Yeah, and I'm going to do it over and over and over you guys will start so you feel by doing it that way, you don't distort the pixels or anything like no, uh, some people do it on hard light, yeah, I do it on soft, ok to me it's not really a big difference I just always automatic got us off so I'm gonna open a romantic texture I called them there I called them romantic and there's different kinds here and because of the flowers and because of the look I will pick one of my floral one so I'll probably mean they'll pick this guy and the way I do this with textures is textures this ad that painterly effect to an image so now this is open I'm going to take my a little arrow guy here and click and drag it over to this layer to the photo um that's okay just click yes whatever because it's probably because it's a psd and I'm dragging a j paige overtop it gave me that warning so this is not as big right? Because it's such a massive file but that's ok it doesn't matter I will rotate this texture so it's going to the same uh like landscape mode here and I'm gonna click and drag it so it fits over my image and covers it just want right over top got to make sure it fits right over because if not you're gonna have ah we're little empty patch there okay so there is that so now it's over top you don't see it and I will take this guy and I'll click and drag it into the mask um masque selection down below and it's still hidden so when now it's created a mask over top and I'll hit control I and reverts it so now it's disappeared there's two ways to do this I I could have just put the layer over top and put in hit screen out maybe show you that a different way but the masking wei is a little easier when I want to add details back in and so now I know where the texture is that I wanted to be and I'll take my brush the brush is selected and the color will go backto white when you're masking is always between black and white so now I've got white selected and opacity I don't know it just depends all usually like I could do that just to see what's going on it's kind of strong so I'm gonna bring it down a little bit I'm just trying to get the right brush size here so my opacity is a thirty nine percent and I am just making sure this is selected right here and just going to dab over it as if I'm painting and putting in that texture back in there just to add something extra to the photo and it's becoming really nice and dreamy you can also um below this out if you wanted a little more to get rid of some of that texture if it's too strong say you go right over top and it's like too much all you do is go back to your black brush because that's the color of what it was when it was concealing everything and you could just pay back over that I don't want to much there, I don't want to much of the rose is there, I'm just kind of go back and dab over it, okay? And then last thing I would do it for this like I'm pretty happy and flatten it, the last thing I would do is just make sure I'm happy with the exposure and sometimes I'd run in action over it. I've already done a preset um hold on here, where's my actions, I've already applied a preset, but now I'm going to try that I'm going to see if I want to try something on my actions so here's, all my actions that I use um, maybe I'll choose snow white because I like it, so I'll choose snow white and my actions to run in also in masks, mask layers, there's, not in all of them, but a lot of them have that, so I feel like this is too much, so I d select those, those are just added for extra detail and I will play around in my actions, I do this a lot people, sometimes they're like, you know, well, the action didn't look like that when I ran is because I play around, I alter things. The action is there for you as a basis, not meant toe run and then it's going to just make the image into something else you're you are supposed to play around with it and get it to your liking, so I'm pretty happy with the way this looks let's say I want to just all done, I'm in it now. I've selected this later the grady aunt phil and my black brush and I say, I just feel like it's too bright around here. I'm just gonna paint over top of that. So it's you see on the layer right here it's created a little area scott rid of the grady in't wherever that's been sitting on the photo and if you don't know exactly where it is it's like all near the bottom so ill and, you know, maybe I'll select this one so you can see it a little bit better. I feel like there's too much haze over here. I can just paint that out with my black paint brush on dh yeah, and that's it so I'm happy with the photo I'm done and that's that just flatten it out that's good, how is that good?
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
Dan ilicak
Amanda diaz has given me inspiration and purpose. I wake up everyday inspired to create a beautiful image, atleast enough to hold your "aww" for a few seconds. I can relate to Amanda on so many levels as I also found myself in photography and never planned for it. Just like Amanda, I also started from scratch with nobody to help or assist me. If I had found this tutorial a few years ago, it would have speeded up the process of learning. Even today I call myself a professional photographer, this course still had a lot to offer me. I can blab on and on about how much I love and support Amanda diaz, however I will make it short and sweet by saying three simple words, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" www.snipershotsphotography.com https://www.facebook.com/danssnipershots
a Creativelive Student
This was the best creative and most prolific 3 days of a tutorial. Amanda covered the entire spectrum of what every photographer who's trying to become better and bigger go through. I loved the part where she spoke about how to shoot in any lighting situation outdoors and a few indoors. She not only spoke about them, she went into full detail to help the novice or advanced level photog. Despite the tethering issues CL had with Lightroom, Amanda poetically commanded every day of her 3 days. Another point is that she did everything "her way", and not the traditional textbook style of teaching and editing. One prolific point is that NONE of the previous CL instructors touched the issue of drama, unwanted criticisms, or unprofessional things that happen in the industry, however with a brilliant stroke of quiet humility, and courage, Amanda did. I believe it helped everyone realize that no matter what level of photography you're on that it happens and you have to oftentimes "bite your tongue", or "turn the other cheek". It also pointed out that as photographers we should be doing everything to help one another to build our industry, vice tear it down by hurting one another because of the mindset of "competition". Amanda Diaz, and CL I salute and thank you dearly! Semper Fi! Mike www.mikeconphoto.com www.facebook.com/mikeconphotography