Adobe® Photoshop® CC® Bootcamp

Lesson Info

Introduction to Creative Effects

Now we're talking about custom creative effects. So it's all coming together now. We've talked about a lot of stuff, and we're getting into one of my favorite things, which is the workflow portion of our series that we're doing here. And this is where we get to jump in and take, just, put all the basic, beginning stuff to the side for a little bit, breathe a little bit, and allow our creative energies to flow. Creating your own custom effects, this is really important. We get to combine layers, layer masks, blend if, opacity fill, filters, adjustment layers, and, if we wanted to, even incorporate actions with all of this. So we're combining all this stuff that we have talked about to create things that make us unique in our workflow. And I have to talk about that uniqueness for a second here. I have this thing that I call tone, color, and artistic effects as a workflow. And this is exactly how my workflow starts every single time. You're going to get sick of this, because we're gonna t...

alk about it quite a bit over the next four lessons after this. Tone is just getting, making sure your shadows, your highlights, your mid-tones, all jive well. Color is making sure that your colors look good when they're on that canvas, that reds look like reds, yellows look like yellows, and maybe, you maybe adjust some tonal contrast in those colors. But artistic effects, this is where you come out. This is where you become unique. Anyone can do these things; anyone can do that. A trained technician of photos can do this. But this part right here, this is you. This is where your style lives. Now just to take a little aside here, I used to do this thing called an HDR concert on my website called Everyday HDR. And what the HDR concert was is this is where I would take a bracketed series of images, I would put them into a zip file, I'd post them on my website, and anybody who wanted to process them could download them, send me their version, and I would compile a post of all the people who built an HDR photograph from the series of bracketed images. It was probably around, I stopped doing this probably around 2015 or so. Well, what happened was, no matter who got those bracketed photos, everyone would come back with a wildly different image. And HDR is one of those things where, yeah, we could all take a little turn for the worst on some of those things, but they were really good. It was just really good works of art that I think the HDR process would force people more into this direction than into just this direction. And every one of those images, if it was from Germany, France, Italy, America, Wisconsin, no matter where that thing came from, they all had their own unique artistic expression in there. Some of those individuals would, they participated in every one of those HDR concerts that I did. I think I did like 15 of them. And what you saw from that was I could look at them without even knowing who the individual was, I'd be like, "That's a Jim, that's a Matt, that's a Blake," and I could see their artistic approach coming through in that image. This stuff anyone can do. This stuff is where I want you to start heading towards now. I don't care who you think you are as a photographer, you are an artist first, okay? I have a t-shirt that I wear. It says, "Hello, my name is artist. I am a photographer." (audience members giggle) As it's mind-boggling stuff, because if you think of yourself as, "Oh, I'm just a photographer," I hear that all the time, "Oh, I'm just a photographer." Really? Then that's all you ever will be. I am an artist first, and then I'm a photographer. That lets me play in this artistic realm a lot and have a lot of fun, and be a little bit more free with my creative expression. This is what's helped me develop a style. This is what's separated my work from all the other people. This would be an image that I would say tone and color-wise, is done. It's in the inside of the Notre Dame. Gotta love that 10 millimeter lens. But, in the inside of the Notre Dame, this is what I would say is technically probably good on tone and color. And I could've stopped there, but the next transition was my artistic effect, changing that image just so slightly to have my style and my unique flare added to that. Subtle, but it's a big difference. If you saw these, actually looking at them on a computer screen, you'd be like, like I'm looking at it here, I'm like, "Oh man, that is wildly different." Here's another image. This is what I would say probably technically, this is another one from Grinter's Farm, technically, for tone and color it's probably pretty good. But look what happens when I put my artistic flare on it. That's uniquely and innately me. Nobody else can create this style image in this exact same way, and I know that because all of this was actually done in Adobe Camera Raw. But putting radial filters here to pop this one. Put a radial filter here to pop this one. Drop a graduated filter here to pop the background. All of those adjustments that you make, think about the exponential amount of possibilities there are when you start combining all those things together. But this is uniquely me, and I'm the only one who could've done this to this photograph. If I gave you these bracketed photos and had you work on this, you're gonna come up with something completely different that's uniquely you and that only you can create. So what we're gonna do in this segment is we're just gonna take a look at all the things that we've talked about so far and start looking at ways that we can combine adjustment layers together to create our own artistic styles. Now we've talked about filters, so this is kind of gonna feel a little bit like what we did with filters, but we're not really gonna be using that many filters for this. We're really gonna be using adjustment layers, and, expanding the possibilities of those adjustment layers. 'Cause a gradient map can do so much. A regular gradient can do so much, but it can only do that much if you know all the things you need to do to make it do that to develop your unique style. So let's go ahead and jump into Photoshop and get started with our first creative effect.

Adobe® Photoshop® CC® is a valuable tool for photographers, but it can also be intimidating. In this all-inclusive 20 lesson course, you’ll go from opening the program for the first time to creating images that really stand out. Join Blake Rudis, Photoshop® expert and founder of f64 Academy, as he shows you how to maximize your use of Photoshop®. Topics covered will include:

Week 1
• Class Introduction & Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, Setup Interface, Cropping and Layers
Week 2
• Layer Tools, Masks, Selections, Clean-Up Tools and Shapes & Text
Week 3
• Smart Objects , Transforming, Actions, Filters and Editing Video
Week 4
• Custom Creative Effects, Natural Retouching, Portrait Workflow, Landscape Workflow, and Composite Workflow

Don’t let the many aspects of Photoshop® prevent you from maximizing your use of this amazing app. Blake will help you develop the confidence to use your imagination and create the images that you will be proud to share with your clients.

Software Used: Adobe® Photoshop® CC® 2018

Lessons

Bootcamp Introduction
The Bridge Interface
Setting up Bridge
Overview of Bridge
Practical Application of Bridge
Introduction to Raw Editing
Setting up ACR Preferences & Interface
Global Tools Part 1
Global Tools Part 2
Local Tools
Introduction to the Photoshop Interface
Toolbars, Menus and Windows
Setup and Interface
Adobe Libraries
Saving Files
Introduction to Cropping
Cropping for Composition in ACR
Cropping for Composition in Photoshop
Cropping for the Subject in Post
Cropping for Print
Perspective Cropping in Photoshop
Introduction to Layers
Vector & Raster Layers Basics
Adjustment Layers in Photoshop
Organizing and Managing Layers
Introduction to Layer Tools and Blend Modes
Screen and Multiply and Overlay
Soft Light Blend Mode
Color and Luminosity Blend Modes
Color Burn and Color Dodge Blend Modes
Introduction to Layer Styles
Practical Application: Layer Tools
Introduction to Masks and Brushes
Brush Basics
Custom Brushes
Brush Mask: Vignettes
Brush Mask: Curves Dodge & Burn
Brush Mask: Hue & Saturation
Mask Groups
Clipping Masks
Masking in Adobe Camera Raw
Practical Applications: Masks
Introduction to Selections
Basic Selection Tools
The Pen Tool
Masks from Selections
Selecting Subjects and Masking
Color Range Mask
Luminosity Masks Basics
Introduction to Cleanup Tools
Adobe Camera Raw
Healing and Spot Healing Brush
The Clone Stamp Tool
The Patch Tool
Content Aware Move Tool
Content Aware Fill
Custom Cleanup Selections
Introduction to Shapes and Text
Text Basics
Shape Basics
Adding Text to Pictures
Custom Water Marks
Introduction to Smart Objects
Smart Object Basics
Smart Objects and Filters
Smart Objects and Image Transformation
Smart Objects and Album Layouts
Smart Objects and Composites
Introduction to Image Transforming
ACR and Lens Correction
Photoshop and Lens Correction
The Warp Tool
Perspective Transformations
Introduction to Actions in Photoshop
Introduction to the Actions Panel Interface
Making Your First Action
Modifying Actions After You Record Them
Adding Stops to Actions
Conditional Actions
Actions that Communicate
Introduction to Filters
ACR as a Filter
Helpful Artistic Filters
Helpful Practical Filters
Sharpening with Filters
Rendering Trees
The Oil Paint and Add Noise Filters
Introduction to Editing Video
Timeline for Video
Cropping Video
Adjustment Layers and Video
Building Lookup Tables
Layers, Masking Video & Working with Type
ACR to Edit Video
Animated Gifs
Introduction to Creative Effects
Black, White, and Monochrome
Matte and Cinematic Effects
Gradient Maps and Solid Color Grades
Gradients
Glow and Haze
Introduction to Natural Retouching
Brightening Teeth
Clean Up with the Clone Stamp Tool
Cleaning and Brightening Eyes
Advanced Clean Up Techniques
Introduction to Portrait Workflow & Bridge Organization
ACR for Portraits Pre-Edits
Portrait Workflow Techniques
Introduction to Landscape Workflow & Bridge Organization
Landscape Workflow Techniques
Introduction to Compositing & Bridge
Composite Workflow Techniques
Landscape Composite Projects
Bonus: Rothko and Workspace
Bonus: Adding Textures to Photos
Bonus: The Mask (Extras)
Bonus: The Color Range Mask in ACR