Lesson Info
43. Introduction to Selections
Lessons
Bootcamp Introduction
16:22 2The Bridge Interface
13:33 3Setting up Bridge
06:55 4Overview of Bridge
11:29 5Practical Application of Bridge
27:56 6Introduction to Raw Editing
11:00 7Setting up ACR Preferences & Interface
07:39 8Global Tools Part 1
16:44Global Tools Part 2
20:01 10Local Tools
22:56 11Introduction to the Photoshop Interface
07:13 12Toolbars, Menus and Windows
25:07 13Setup and Interface
11:48 14Adobe Libraries
05:57 15Saving Files
07:39 16Introduction to Cropping
12:10 17Cropping for Composition in ACR
04:44 18Cropping for Composition in Photoshop
12:40 19Cropping for the Subject in Post
03:25 20Cropping for Print
07:34 21Perspective Cropping in Photoshop
07:11 22Introduction to Layers
08:42 23Vector & Raster Layers Basics
05:05 24Adjustment Layers in Photoshop
27:35 25Organizing and Managing Layers
15:35 26Introduction to Layer Tools and Blend Modes
21:34 27Screen and Multiply and Overlay
09:15 28Soft Light Blend Mode
07:34 29Color and Luminosity Blend Modes
12:47 30Color Burn and Color Dodge Blend Modes
07:43 31Introduction to Layer Styles
11:43 32Practical Application: Layer Tools
13:06 33Introduction to Masks and Brushes
04:43 34Brush Basics
09:22 35Custom Brushes
04:01 36Brush Mask: Vignettes
06:58 37Brush Mask: Curves Dodge & Burn
06:53 38Brush Mask: Hue & Saturation
07:52 39Mask Groups
05:52 40Clipping Masks
04:11 41Masking in Adobe Camera Raw
07:06 42Practical Applications: Masks
14:03 43Introduction to Selections
05:42 44Basic Selection Tools
17:41 45The Pen Tool
11:56 46Masks from Selections
04:22 47Selecting Subjects and Masking
07:11 48Color Range Mask
17:35 49Luminosity Masks Basics
12:00 50Introduction to Cleanup Tools
07:02 51Adobe Camera Raw
10:16 52Healing and Spot Healing Brush
14:56 53The Clone Stamp Tool
10:20 54The Patch Tool
06:38 55Content Aware Move Tool
04:56 56Content Aware Fill
06:46 57Custom Cleanup Selections
15:42 58Introduction to Shapes and Text
13:46 59Text Basics
15:57 60Shape Basics
07:00 61Adding Text to Pictures
09:46 62Custom Water Marks
14:05 63Introduction to Smart Objects
04:37 64Smart Object Basics
09:13 65Smart Objects and Filters
09:05 66Smart Objects and Image Transformation
10:57 67Smart Objects and Album Layouts
11:40 68Smart Objects and Composites
10:47 69Introduction to Image Transforming
04:34 70ACR and Lens Correction
09:45 71Photoshop and Lens Correction
14:26 72The Warp Tool
11:16 73Perspective Transformations
20:33 74Introduction to Actions in Photoshop
09:27 75Introduction to the Actions Panel Interface
05:06 76Making Your First Action
03:49 77Modifying Actions After You Record Them
11:38 78Adding Stops to Actions
04:01 79Conditional Actions
07:36 80Actions that Communicate
25:26 81Introduction to Filters
04:38 82ACR as a Filter
09:20 83Helpful Artistic Filters
17:08 84Helpful Practical Filters
07:08 85Sharpening with Filters
07:32 86Rendering Trees
08:20 87The Oil Paint and Add Noise Filters
15:08 88Introduction to Editing Video
06:20 89Timeline for Video
08:15 90Cropping Video
03:34 91Adjustment Layers and Video
05:25 92Building Lookup Tables
07:00 93Layers, Masking Video & Working with Type
15:11 94ACR to Edit Video
06:10 95Animated Gifs
11:39 96Introduction to Creative Effects
06:08 97Black, White, and Monochrome
18:05 98Matte and Cinematic Effects
08:23 99Gradient Maps and Solid Color Grades
12:20 100Gradients
04:21 101Glow and Haze
10:23 102Introduction to Natural Retouching
05:33 103Brightening Teeth
10:25 104Clean Up with the Clone Stamp Tool
08:07 105Cleaning and Brightening Eyes
16:58 106Advanced Clean Up Techniques
24:47 107Introduction to Portrait Workflow & Bridge Organization
14:47 108ACR for Portraits Pre-Edits
21:27 109Portrait Workflow Techniques
18:46 110Introduction to Landscape Workflow & Bridge Organization
12:17 111Landscape Workflow Techniques
37:36 112Introduction to Compositing & Bridge
06:59 113Composite Workflow Techniques
34:01 114Landscape Composite Projects
24:14 115Bonus: Rothko and Workspace
05:15 116Bonus: Adding Textures to Photos
07:05 117Bonus: The Mask (Extras)
05:18 118Bonus: The Color Range Mask in ACR
04:54Lesson Info
Introduction to Selections
Selections are probably one of my favorite things because when we combine it with all the things that we've already learned leading up to this with our layers, our layer tools, our masks, blend if and now with selections, we just keep piling on more possibilities for our editing in Photoshop. So selections in a nut shell, what are selections? Selections allow you to isolate areas of your image and edit them without affecting other areas, of the image as a whole. Some might think, well isn't that the same thing as masking? Well in a way, yes and actually these selections can be used hand in hand with masking. They just make it a little bit easier in the masking process. These are called local adjustments and they're useful when you want to segregate two different areas so just a little reminder here what global is and what local is. A global adjustment is something that affects the entire canvas or the entire image. So think about an adjustment layer, curves adjustment layer, gradient m...
ap, gradient that has no blend modes, it's set to the middle or no, I guess I should say no masks on them at all. That is something that is affecting the entire canvas. When we go into a local selection, a local selection is something that is isolating that one very specific spot and that can be done with selection tools in combination with things like masking so that one area is locally edited and not affecting the global canvas as a whole. These are things like cutouts and sometimes these can be even very simple, subtle things that you're gonna see as we go through this presentation so this right here is what I call power house editing. When you can make a selection, you can make a mask for it, you can add blend if to it, you can add blend modes to it, you can add opacity to it, you have all kinds of possibilities for one simple and single layer in your photograph that allows you to do so much and there are a lot of programs and plugins out there that do allow you to do selections but not many of them do 'em quite as well and quite as easily as Photoshop, especially when we start to get into things like select and mask. So here is a background layer and with this background layer, I can then put anything I want on top of this background layer and I'm gonna do that with things like selections so here is a photograph of my wife where the background is transparent around her head and I want to put any background behind her. Now if you saw the before image of this, it was taken in my basement with one light next to her, with a power outlet behind her head and the windowsill right above her head and it doesn't look very attractive for the shoot but you know, I didn't have a big studio at the time, I didn't have any capabilities to do that so instead I just took her portrait, put it on top of that background and made it a more flattering portrait for her instead of it being in my basement studio, if you want to call it that. But what you can see is that we still have a nice edge and you can still see hair, you can still see what you would normally see in a regular photograph, it's just a very nice, clean selection. Here's another opportunity where you can use selections. This is in Yosemite, looking in tunnel view, looking down tunnel view, gorgeous morning to shoot, the only problem was we didn't have a very good sunrise, nothing beautiful was happening but I had a good quality image that I could use there. If you look at the top of this image, it's all a very white, blown out kinda bright sky. Typically this would be a photograph that you'd be like you know what, I'm just gonna dump it, I'm just gonna trash it but if you have clouds from another image, which in my defense, these clouds were also taken in Yosemite about five hours later, we can then transpose these clouds into this image and make it a little bit more attractive. We need to combine these things in multiple ways though, we can't just apply that sky there and think that everything's gonna be you know, peaches and cream, we have to make it look like they're gonna blend together, that light is gonna match so it's not just take that cloud and just put it in the background there. Now many people have reservations about doing things like this but the idea is that if I waited long enough, those clouds could be there, right? Okay, we'll just call it that, there's your justification, if you waited long enough, you'd have those clouds. So you don't need to throw away a good image like this just because the clouds are bad. Just take cloud photos and put them in there and I've included five cloud photos in this pack that you can download with this course so if you don't have clouds, you can go ahead and use some of mine to transpose them into some of your images that might not be as great as you'd want them to be. Another thing, this is a photo in San Francisco of a bridge, I think that's rather popular, Golden Gate bridge and I like the photo but it just didn't have the feel that I wanted to get out of it so I used selections in a different way. I didn't use selections in a way that I took the sky out and replaced it with a different sky. I used selections for the dark areas in the image, the mid tones in the image and the highlights in the image to push and pull them individually so that I could separate those highlights, mid tones and shadows in my photograph on masks through selections. It's a lot easier to do than you would think. And the result is something a little bit more like this so here was our before, here's our after. Very subtle application but separating the highlights, mid tones and shadows in the image to go ahead and segregate those areas so that I can edit them individually on curve's adjustment layers. So selections don't necessarily have to be used to make, to pull the sky away from an image or to separate a foreground from a background in say a portrait or something like that, they can be used even in subtle ways like this. So we're gonna go ahead and hop into Photoshop and we're gonna start with the absolute basics of some of the selection tools that you have available to you in Photoshop.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Amazing course, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a beginner's course for photographers. The problem isn't Blake's explanations; they're top. The problem is the vast scope of this course and the order in which the topics are presented. Take layers for example. When I was first learning Photoshop (back when we learned from books), I found I learned little or nothing from, for example, books that covered layers before they covered how to improve/process photographs. These books taught me how to organize, move, and link layers before they showed me what a layer was actually for. Those books tended to teach me everything there is to know about layers (types of layers, how to organize them, how to move them, how to move them two at a time, how to move them two at a time even if there are other layers between the two you're interested in, useful troubleshooting tips, etc. ) all before I even know (from a photographer's point of view) what it is the things actually do. The examples of organizing, linking, and moving mean everything for graphic designers from Day One, but for photographers not so much. Blake does the same thing as those books. Topics he covers extremely early demand a lot of theoretical imagination for a photographer who doesn't already know quite a bit about what he is talking about. Learning about abstract things first and concrete things later only makes PS that much harder to understand. If you AREN'T a beginner, however, this course is amazing. I thought it would be like an Army Bootcamp, taking you from zero and building you into a fit, competent Photoshop grunt. Now I think it's more like Army Bootcamp for high school varsity jocks. It isn't going to take you from the beginning, but the amount you'll get out of it is nonetheless more than your brain can imagine. I've been using PS for years to improve my photographs, and even to create the odd artistic composite or two. The amount I've learned in the first week is amazing, and every day I learn something -- more like many things -- which I immediately implement to improve my productivity and/or widen the horizons of what I can achieve. If you ARE a photographer who's a Photoshop beginner, I'd take very seriously the advice Blake gives in the introduction: Watch one lesson, and practice the skills and principles you learn in that one lesson for two weeks. THEN watch the next lesson. You can't do that of course without buying the course, so it's up to you to decide whether you'd like to learn Photoshop and master Photoshop all from the same course. Learning it first and mastering it later will cost more money, but I think you'll understand everything better and have a much more enjoyable ride in the process. As for me? I'm going to have to find the money to buy this course. There is simply way too much content in each lesson for me to try to take on all at once, but on the other hand I don't want to miss anything at all that he has to share.
Robert Andrews
Blake Rudis is the absolute best in teaching photoshop. His knowledge and how he presents the instruction is clear and concise - there is NO ONE BETTER. Yes, his classes require some basic skills, and maybe I'd organize the order of (or group) the classes in a different order, but, let me be clear - if anyone is to be successful or famous in the Photoshop world, it should be Blake Rudis. I strongly recommend his teaching. I started photography and post processing in 2018, and because of this class, I'm know what Im doing. The energy you get when you create something beautiful is profound, it makes you bounce out of bed (at 4AM) like a 5 year old, to go create. It's a great ride! Thanks Blake, & Thanks Creative live.
Esther Gambrell
WOW!!! I've been purchasing CL classes for several years now and have watched HOURS of "How-To Photoshop" classes, but this is the first one I've actually purchased because of the AWESOME BONUS content!!! SERIOUSLY??!!?!? A PLUG-IN??? But not only that, Blake is SO easy to understand, and he breaks down concepts in different ways to connect with different people's learning styles. I REALLY appreciated this approach because I am a LEFT-BRAINED creative that has an engineering background, so I really connected to what Blake was saying. THANK YOU FOR THAT! There are TONS of Photoshop courses out there, but I found this one to be the most helpful in they way Blake teaches concepts so that you know WHY you're doing what your doing. I feel like he taught me how to fish with Photoshop to feed me for a lifetime instead of just giving me a fish to feed me for one day. This is the BEST overall PS course out there!!! Thank you!!!!