Introduction to Cleanup Tools

Lesson Info

Introduction to Cleanup Tools

Cleanup tools, what I mean by this and the importance of these is that, the word 'cleanup' is used to define the process of concealing, replacing, or moving unwanted objects, blemishes, or imperfections in our photographs. So if you have something in there that doesn't look like it belongs, we can take it out. And I often feel like I have to justify this, but let's say you're shooting a waterfall, and a lot of times around waterfalls we have trees that fall down because they're so close to that water that they erode away and the tree is right there in the middle of that waterfall. That waterfall would look a lot better if that tree wasn't there. So we can use the data around that image to move that tree that has fallen in front of your image. I'm not He-Man, so I can't pick It up myself and move it out of the photo to take the photograph, but I know in post-production that's something that I could possibly do. And why would I do that? I want to do that to make the image more visually a...

ppealing for the viewer. Now when we do this we're not necessarily trying to degrade the integrity of the photograph or degrade the integrity of us as a person working on this image. I don't want you to confuse this with adding something that wasn't there. This is mainly if there's something in the photograph that needs to be cleaned up, we can do it. Perfect example, you're shooting in a city and there's some trash on the ground. Well, obviously there's trash in the city, but if it's right in there and it's white and it's stark and it's blowing right in front of someone's face, you're gonna want to remove that. Especially if it's trash in the city, white, specifically, because our eyes will naturally go to highest highlights first and then navigate around the image. So if that piece of trash is the whitest thing in the photograph, the viewer is gonna go directly to that and it's gonna ruin the entire image for you. So it can be a way that we can ensure that the viewer is getting the best possible view of the photograph that we are giving them, because we are the artist, they are the viewer, and we wanna give them the best experience possible. Here are some interesting stats. On my website I do a lot of critique sessions. I do 12 critique sessions a month, and in each one of those critique sessions I talk about things that work, things that don't work, and things that can be fixed, and a lot of times I fix them right in Photoshop. Interestingly enough, four out of five images during critique sessions have dust spots on them. So a dost spot is something that is on our sensor that when we take the picture, our sensor is actually reading the dust that's on the sensor. They're hard to visualize, but once you see them and once I show you what they look like, you know exaclty what they are and exactly how to fix them. And this is kind of an irritation for someone who does critiques for people. Because I teach this stuff all the time, and I just want you to just fix the dust spot 'cause it's a beautiful photograph and you got this spot in the middle of your sunset. Same thing with a portrait. If you're doing portrait work and we have a beautiful subject in front of us but they happen to have a pimple. Well that pimple wouldn't be there a week from now, so just go ahead and get rid of it. So pimples and dust spots are pretty close to one another. Two out of five images have something distracting in them that should be removed in order to make that a more pleasurable scene. Now when I say this I'm not talking about removing things that are important. So a lot of times we might look at a scene and we might see something that we think doesn't belong in there so we go ahead and remove it, or someone suggests that we remove it, but that object is actually something that-- Maybe a placard or something that actually is part of that scene. So if you remove it, that's kind of removing the integrity from that photo. A lot of times we do this with landmarks. If you're Photoshopping, I hate that verb. But if you're in Photoshop and you're going, and you're removing dust spots or removing things from your images and it happens to be something that is iconic for that scene, let's say cityscape or something like that, you might wanna leave those types of things in. But there's other things that we can remove. Like this image for example. You might not think that there's a whole lot in here that can be fixed, but there's actually seven things that I see in here that can be fixed and could all be fixed very easily using cleanup methods and cleanup tools. So first right off the bat, there's a little electric plate on the wall. If I'm doing real estate photography and it's for actually documenting the room, and it's not necessarily about where the electrical outlets are, we can go ahead and take those things out, 'cause they're just not, they get in the way and they distract the viewer's eye. There's another one on that wall in the back corner towards the middle. There's another right down here. If we look at the locks on the door, that just kinda creeps me out. (laughs) I'm like wait a second. I get it, you wanna be safe and all, but, you know, for the sake of the image, we can remove those things. And then we have the chandelier, if I'm not gonna show the whole thing, I should probably just remove it. And all these things can be done with the clone stamp tool. And even down there, you barely even see it, but that vent. That vent right there can be replaced too. And you think to yourself, maybe you're thinking, "Well I know the clone stamp tool "and how on Earth would I remove that?" Well sometimes it's not about using the healing tools but it's about using other parts of the image to our advantage, and I'll show you how to do that. But if we remove all those things, if we take all seven of those things and we take them outta the image, we get a more visually appealing image. You're the viewer at this point and you're seeing this. If I just gave you this, you would be none the wiser that there was a plate on the lower left hand corner, you know, the air plate, you wouldn't see the electrical plates, you don't see the locks, that are gonna bolt you in and keep you there forever, and the chandelier, look at that. Perfectly replaced. Here it was before. Here it was after. There is data within this image that we can use to our advantage to replace other areas within the photograph. We just have to know what tools to use, how to use them, and what to avoid. So I'm gonna tell you right off the bat the things that you want to avoid, right off the bat, if you're taking notes, avoid repeating patterns at all cost. Period. Avoid repeating patterns at all cost. And the reason why is that while you're using the clone stamp tool you might think you're doing a pretty good job with it, back out of it. Take a look at it, take a step back, look at it again, if there's any repeating patters, the viewer is gonna see it right away, and be a dead give away that you did something. There's a story about this. So, my wife and I are about to get married, and we're sourcing a bunch of different photographers, and one of them was actually a pretty good photographer. And they showed me their portfolio, and like, "Yeah, my wife's really good in Photoshop. "You can't even tell that the chair has been removed here." And I looked at it 'cause he showed me where it was and I said, "Well you know, chairs have four legs." And he goes, "Yeah." I said, "This one has six." And he goes, "Oh, yeah. "Well, I guess we need to doctor that one up." So, keep those things in mind that yeah it might look like just by taking an automated process that you're gonna see here with these tools, you can't always go with the automated process and sometimes you have to use your own intuition to take different parts of the photograph to fill in the areas that we need to fill in. So let's go ahead and migrate over to Photoshop and we're gonna start off in the most basic of all the tools to do this, and that's gonna Adobe Camera Raw.

Class Description

Lessons

1. Bootcamp Introduction
2. The Bridge Interface
3. Setting up Bridge
4. Overview of Bridge
5. Practical Application of Bridge
6. Introduction to Raw Editing
7. Setting up ACR Preferences & Interface
8. Global Tools Part 1
9. Global Tools Part 2
10. Local Tools
11. Introduction to the Photoshop Interface
12. Toolbars, Menus and Windows
13. Setup and Interface
14. Adobe Libraries
15. Saving Files
16. Introduction to Cropping
17. Cropping for Composition in ACR
18. Cropping for Composition in Photoshop
19. Cropping for the Subject in Post
20. Cropping for Print
21. Perspective Cropping in Photoshop
22. Introduction to Layers
23. Vector & Raster Layers Basics
24. Adjustment Layers in Photoshop
25. Organizing and Managing Layers
26. Introduction to Layer Tools and Blend Modes
27. Screen and Multiply and Overlay
28. Soft Light Blend Mode
29. Color and Luminosity Blend Modes
30. Color Burn and Color Dodge Blend Modes
31. Introduction to Layer Styles
32. Practical Application: Layer Tools
33. Introduction to Masks and Brushes
34. Brush Basics
35. Custom Brushes
36. Brush Mask: Vignettes
37. Brush Mask: Curves Dodge & Burn
38. Brush Mask: Hue & Saturation
39. Mask Groups
40. Clipping Masks
41. Masking in Adobe Camera Raw
42. Practical Applications: Masks
43. Introduction to Selections
44. Basic Selection Tools
45. The Pen Tool
46. Masks from Selections
47. Selecting Subjects and Masking
48. Color Range Mask
49. Luminosity Masks Basics
50. Introduction to Cleanup Tools
51. Adobe Camera Raw
52. Healing and Spot Healing Brush
53. The Clone Stamp Tool
54. The Patch Tool
55. Content Aware Move Tool
56. Content Aware Fill
57. Custom Cleanup Selections
58. Introduction to Shapes and Text
59. Text Basics
60. Shape Basics
61. Adding Text to Pictures
62. Custom Water Marks
63. Introduction to Smart Objects
64. Smart Object Basics
65. Smart Objects and Filters
66. Smart Objects and Image Transformation
67. Smart Objects and Album Layouts
68. Smart Objects and Composites
69. Introduction to Image Transforming
70. ACR and Lens Correction
71. Photoshop and Lens Correction
72. The Warp Tool
73. Perspective Transformations
74. Introduction to Actions in Photoshop
75. Introduction to the Actions Panel Interface
76. Making Your First Action
77. Modifying Actions After You Record Them
78. Adding Stops to Actions
79. Conditional Actions
80. Actions that Communicate
81. Introduction to Filters
82. ACR as a Filter
83. Helpful Artistic Filters
84. Helpful Practical Filters
85. Sharpening with Filters
86. Rendering Trees
87. The Oil Paint and Add Noise Filters
88. Introduction to Editing Video
89. Timeline for Video
90. Cropping Video
91. Adjustment Layers and Video
92. Building Lookup Tables
93. Layers, Masking Video & Working with Type
94. ACR to Edit Video
95. Animated Gifs
96. Introduction to Creative Effects
97. Black, White, and Monochrome
98. Matte and Cinematic Effects
99. Gradient Maps and Solid Color Grades
100. Gradients
101. Glow and Haze
102. Introduction to Natural Retouching
103. Brightening Teeth
104. Clean Up with the Clone Stamp Tool
105. Cleaning and Brightening Eyes
106. Advanced Clean Up Techniques
107. Introduction to Portrait Workflow & Bridge Organization
108. ACR for Portraits Pre-Edits
109. Portrait Workflow Techniques
110. Introduction to Landscape Workflow & Bridge Organization
111. Landscape Workflow Techniques
112. Introduction to Compositing & Bridge
113. Composite Workflow Techniques
114. Landscape Composite Projects
115. Bonus: Rothko and Workspace
116. Bonus: Adding Textures to Photos
117. Bonus: The Mask (Extras)
118. Bonus: The Color Range Mask in ACR