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Annotating for the Retoucher

Lesson 8 from: The Art & Business of High-End Retouching

Pratik Naik

Annotating for the Retoucher

Lesson 8 from: The Art & Business of High-End Retouching

Pratik Naik

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Lesson Info

8. Annotating for the Retoucher

Pratik and Felix Kunze demonstrate the use of annotations in professional retouching.

Lesson Info

Annotating for the Retoucher

So I'm just gonna I finally got this open back up in photo shop, I'm just going to make a it's just a four megabyte unearths it's still made a giant file, but it's a relatively small file? Um, I've made a blank player and I'm going to get my brush tour and just get it's a red brush I can even make it a little bit harder so that it does that and I'm going to make it a little bit smaller, so now I'm going to be that really annoying person that drills in and I see immediately something's so what I'm going to do is just circle around like he's the kind of the flash burn, and I see that up here as well, and I think if I just do this and I sent it to critique, I think he'll understand I don't need to annotate exactly what I want, so then I can just kind of do this and say, can you fix these random stray hairs? And I think he'll understand that as well I'm going to say leave sorry about my terrible handwriting because this is the teased hair I want to keep that, so I'm not I'm going to make a...

note specifically because he might go right? I want to get rid of this thing, I don't want him to do that right, I can get these dust spots that are on the sensor just circle them, but I'm praying pretty confident that critique will see them as well. Other things I'm going to look out for us here. I have a little bit of highlight that I would like to get rid of just two make it a little bit smoother here and also here just going to smooth it out and then I might just put smooth, I want I'm gonna zoom out a little bit. I want more definition in the hair, so I'm just going to make some notes. And again, this is something I'm going to write teo critique about. I want to say like high, high, high, high high lights. God, I really should've paid attention when it's handwriting class good and that's pretty much I wouldn't even want to tidy up all of this hair. I think I have a little spot here. I'm going to go in on dh. Do you think what? The lines on the side of face would you do anything with that? Or is it just our personal reasons? Yeah. It's a personal preference. I could do something like this fifty percent yes, and just say take it out a little bit, make it a bit softer. Exactly and it's always another good point about that is when you're working on figures like, you know, actresses and actors and things like that, they have these define noble character six about themselves that you want to take out completely you want to keep it in there, put that realism because it's, like you're hiding a lot of the flaws that are there but the same time you're not moving them completely, so it keeps their natural character when you think from a, uh, it's a matter of taste, I suppose, and if I can get away with keeping these guys in or keeping something that has character and it's my chute and I have that control, I will always do that I don't if a client, if it's a fashion client or someone we have, you know where I know what they're gonna want and of course I have to do it. But for me, it's about keeping that character and if I could get away with it, like I don't think she look sold in any way, shape or form, you know, she's, I think she's beautiful in this look in her eyes, you know everything, and that reminds me I'm going to just drill into the eyes here, make my brush a little bit smaller and just say, can you brighten this and then slash pop I just want a little bit of pop in there you know in particular I understand what that means I'm going to look at the catch lights and all of these little bits and bobs I know pretty people go in and tastefully removed them if I just do this you'd be the whole image you know be the whole image exactly so he's goingto clean all of that up I you know the makeup is good I even have these little speckles and this is where I think we have a little bit of motion in these speckles I don't if you can see there a little bit like right hole's dragging jacket and I actually really like the that up here works really well yeah and I told the makeup artist like can you put a little bit of speckles in there because I knew it would work right from little that was your idea that she told them tio yeah, I just kind of so high and don't be intimidated if you don't know what you know I say to the make up artist what do you think this is my idea? She'll come up with an idea I went to see the model and I said right let's put some sparkles in there to find the little lip a little bit more and that's just from my experience but it wasn't like I walked in with a mood board and everything because I didn't have never met the model before I didn't know if she would work for a beauty look you know it was I mean I'll be honest and seattle is hot too castes high fashion models they all go to new york paris and it's the fashion weeks or going on where am I going to get one from but this worked out really well I really like the other thing I don't really have much other points on this image I might say you know that I would I would put x which is control shift x is the uh people shortcut for liquefy right so I don't have tio I don't have to I don't have to write liquefy in here I'll just put an x on dh but I don't really feel that this image needs it but that's how I would do it for tickets going toe clean up all the skin I mean what you think about uh things like freckles do you typically leave them in take a mountain doesn't have any let's have a look that's going like this is how you should look at an image right and then you're gonna like it but this is not working I would leave freckles I mean even she has a couple of freckles here on I think it adds character for her she has a few freckles in fact that's a good point I would even ask more god more freckles it's like a child doesn't know about me my point kale photo his same critique felix marks the image in his own way and you can understand all of it since you're sitting right beside him and can ask questions but do you ever get notes from photographers and I just I have no idea what you're saying yes yes yes give me some tent uh well first of all it happens when I can understand in handwriting that's that won't be an issue with me you said so would fill while telling to do is instead of writing it they will take the text cursor and just type it up beside the area like this yeah t I just wanted to see how far you get with for you cruel cruel man and I have like a tiny fungi on I probably change hand doing well yes great wow it's a really small run well that's the m we have an m oh my gosh you understand but yeah and sometimes we'll put markings I just don't understand like they'll they'll they'll point to something I don't know what they want to do with it I feel point to a chin and like do the actual liquefy it with the highlight like and besides it's a fix like fix what so I'll go back and ask him did you mean this do I have to mind read like what is it that you need to do and you know, just clarifying communications always think before doing anything donors who never assume and then a great question from fuses from fashion tv do you ever then go back and make suggestions of your own to the photographer as you're looking at it both in the sense of you didn't ask for this but I noticed it so should I do it and contrary to that more of a are you sure you really need this because I think it looks fine do you ever do that? I do both of those things I first of all we'll jump in if I feel like this is extremely obvious that we should be taking this out maybe they're a couple of flowers that they didn't notice when they were doing mark ups and typically if I know that they have notes like that in the past I will go ahead and move it and also I will then go back and say you know what one of the changes that you requested doesn't look as good as I think you thought in your mind I think we should leave it as is we'll reduce it and here's why I'll show them and they'll say yeah you know what actually I think I agree with you and let's go with that because sometimes in their mind they get carried away yeah we should take this out move this it's very easy to go crazy with changes and when you have that control you can rein them in it makes it better that's why it's good to have this line of communication with felix or whoever you work with I could just call him up or text meant say that changes that change it it's probably not a good let's let's between done of it yeah, that z that's an open communication yeah, it is definitely the other thing is actually okay I've decided I don't like the text tour so I have written more freckles but it took so long on just going toe I'm not a photo shop genius okay, I'll admit it right now so I'm just gonna use the horrible handwriting however though is hammering is pretty good in comparison to many people yeah, I know but comparing me to a doctor isn't really much of a favor did but thank you that's very kind then I might make some general points so if I didn't mark six skin I could say realistic skin if I didn't have another way of communicating somehow forgot to use it how to use email but this would be good for critique to have right there so he can remember you know don't clean hair you know just general points what other general points with someone? Well, one question from a scary monster scary monster wants to know what would this photo be used for editorial, portrait fashion and would you note that in the in the notes that you're sending would you say this is a beauty image so we need to focus on this or this is a fashion image so whatever yes exactly so this is a perfect way of doing it I could say don't clean hair or I could just say editorial here which means it's a little bit messy we don't need to be so clean when I sent an image to protect but this is usually what I would write in an e mail say look I have a commercial shoot and I want it to look commercial and then he fixed the handmade it local perfect so I think now here's the interesting point if you have hair like this don't make it look like a really straight revlon looking here I see people do it all the time that's not the intention of this hairstyle it's not meant to practice on this is the intention of the hair stylist so you know retouch based on what the look is understand hair looks asa photography if you're not short don't just jump in it's certainly every single strand of hair that you see yeah like if someone corrected all the hair on this image yeah look flat very waxy it would look really horrible so and I've also with the hair I've gone in and asked him to read highlights and I'm going to actually say contrast in the air but and I know I'm just really making this a beautiful in it. I know that there's enough detail in the shadows hand are actually zoom in and show this to you guys there's a lot of detail here I can bring out this isn't completely black if I put a curve on this I can bring out look, how much do you tell there's? You know, all of these highlights are going to come out really beautifully. And I know this area here is completely black but we even talked about that when we were shooting. And then I checked it with protective action because that's, the only area let's not have hitting any light. If I was to fill this with light, I would make the image completely flat riot so it's better to be selective after the fact. Exactly. Exactly so of course not everyone has a re toucher on set, but the purpose of this class just to keep things in mind yeah, send you things in mind and that's one of the things I would, you know, he's gonna work with me to correct issues that when I messed up yeah, well, as it happens, quite normal. Ask if you would, when you ever retouching for yourself, do you go through this process as well, like, objectively look at your image I kind of see what am I going to do are you just kind of go right? And personally, I'm just like, okay, I know I'm doing this, but I like this will be agreed being you just step back and do before I do. My own image is step one shedded here, step two oh god, because I've realised that skin like and you're talking about this it's just there's no way around doing it, but by bit and sometimes you need to do less anything, right? Yes, I will kind of get an idea off where I wanna go, but that mostly has to do for me with color and feeling, and I try to put some curves on first because sometimes your highlight part of the skin and then you don't need to retouch them anymore and sometimes you had contrast and just, you know, you don't need to retouch the shadows, they're completely clipped depends on the look and feel on dh, then I could do less, so I try to kind of back and forth and critique, you know, if you experience re toucher, you know where the image is going to end up when you do color work and you want a good basis, so I think it's like, kind of a delicate dance. I don't sit on annotate because that's, I don't need to communicate that, but I do look over the image in general, and I don't do it a hundred percent yeah, please don't imitate one hundred percent because you're going to see details that are not going to be there in the final image when you printed or putting webs, don't waste your time, think about things that matter the most to you and that's what you should focus on, because when those details are fixed, you'd be surprised how clean and naturally image looks when you leave these things that you thought were flaws, no suit kind of said it like a fist sized should be like the size of a fist on the screen that works really well. Maybe if it's going to be on a billboard and I magazine than you a bit closer and little bit and even billboards because you're viewing this since it's so far no one's going to see that really? And I think it's just human nature to want to fix everything, but you have to get the practise of zooming out, keeping your distance and keeping that mindset clear that you don't have to zoom in on a hundred percent and do everything, because now in sensor size, get extremely larger or I'm sorry megapixel get extremely large. How much are going to keep zooming in? Right? I mean, it's eventually gonna happen where we see so much detail, we have to restrain ourselves, so get other practice of just going that's with it. So the largest sensor size makes it harder for you? Well, no, I want to clarify it was the mega pixel count and how much you can detail you get from the camera itself. Yeah, interesting. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, what are your tips for syntax? Because I'm just like, this is what I do and I know we talk, but I've seen people who do who do it differently and I've seen, like, you know, a like kind of literally showing what you're going to cut out. Yeah, so some things, some things that other photographers do is with liquefied, they may actually draw the line exactly where they want to fight. Sometimes people don't even do mark ups. They may just right type out news on the side, and they say, you know, make arm a little bit smaller or the hair maykel bit larger it's very general, but this is for the best way to annotate because a lot of the great farmers that typically annotate are done on a separate copy like this, okay? Yeah and how what all the tips would you give me to make it easier for you it's a color coding or color coding would be fantastic because then I can quickly glance when I'm going back and forth between image like I'll keep this open do not keep my main fall open thank you just quickly glance and say that it blue's gonna be maybe lighten the stuff where it's going to be dark in this stuff or so I could say like I could have a blue yeah and let's say an orange exactly or yellow is going crazy so I could be like right this is my blue is dodge and then yellows burn right exactly uh you could say you know, dogs the hair there and burn the hair here and we can make it pop little bit and then one day it will be in a magazine just like this yeah, like wow, beautiful or sometimes always foot plus or minus say you know plus means dodge minus means burn yeah, that simple against you build up like a syntax with yeah, you commune by stops because now I understand photography one here minus two stops here you know back online is to stops etcetera that's a good idea when you were shooting and you are making the adjustments like in there primarily for like, the model in for yourself, you know you're like critiques going to go in there and he's going completely go from the raw file none of this matters but you also fixed like the white about like if it wasn't like that it was a correct white balance but you wanted a little more of a green tint is that something that would be sent over in the raw file? Is that something you would know tate to critique like give it an antique look or you know whatever where effect and then I think this is a good point to go to that next step actually because that's going to show exactly how it is and it is difficult to communicate to photographers what you want to look and feel to be so I came up with this one will go how predictable I just go into alien skin let's use this image and it has all these presets and I can give protect directly this is a very unusual use of the software because it does all these presets for you it's kind of like those instagram filters but it really helps because I don't need to go into a shop and do a bunch of curves and do a bunch of adjustments and let me see if this one I kind of like I could I will just do the same as what we did on suz class go through here and see I really like this this is a little bit de saturated and I would just take the intensity down I'm in alien skin exposure six now, by the way, take the intensity down and if I clicked a little before and after, I can see, like I have just the saturated the skin a little bit, I still have the red lip and I'm getting a little bit of that because the hair is getting a little bit darker going before and after, I'm getting a little bit of a contrast here I I love the little split toning present here, and I like to go in here. This is doc, this is kind of got blue in the shadows and I'm going to go in the highlights and make it a little bit creamy and again, I'm going to be very, very economical with this slider and you see, I'm getting a little bit of a burn here like this isn't a smooth transition, but so I might even take this back off because what we had originally there, this is quite nice I'm going to play with my oh, and before you go and you forge, this is obviously just to communicate the color that you kind of want to see general, isn't it exactly so that's one look like where I could go with this, right so it's making the layer here well that's just I want to give critic an idea of where I'm going this is one of those really subjective things and I used exposure six to just make it a little bit more objective so that I don't have to sit in a photo shop and try to get the colors because he's going to do that not only the hard work for me yeah and you see I'm I just I just have it's such a slight little thing but it makes such a difference right? Like we don't do things that are very minimal it adds the effect exactly and a lot of colors if you notice has come from the set right colors are very beautiful as is because we did those weeks and we make things right and that wardrobe off choices back on choices that's where mostly comes from two exactly so I'm going to give another example where do you I have somebody come to me one of your photos and they said you make it look like this photo from felix really did you know what we actually did was very now and what you're actually lacking is not the post production it's a pre production think before you shoot and here's why I think I never thought about that and so while the color tony is thought out prior to sometimes on big sense love that quick question couple questions for you terrace imagery how often critiqued do you receive images that don't have annotations and you feel it's respectful to then request that photographers do that for you? It is a very time consuming thing sometimes to not get annotations especially if your photography was very controlling in what you want at the end result there are some photographers who also not controlling and they'll say you know I trust your vision could I see you work and I like what I see now sometimes felix will give the annotations for the first few photos but then a few sets later he may not because I already know his preferences I read his mind I've understood it, I've got in his head and I know exactly what the law of the times I would say about fifty percent of the time I don't get annotations is a very risky situation I will take it on if I understand the photographer vision just based on looking at his photos if he doesn't, I'll ask for something else austria's before after a thousand I'll see is there a particular shot that you like that shot similarly that you had before and after so I can see your vision? You did that with me the first time I did I didn't I yeah yeah I was like, oh my god he's going to see how terrible I am everyone has that fear they think they're awful every artist thinks they're awful except for the ones who obviously but a bit of levity is never so then a couple more so you're doing some light toning and some very light editing right now felix before you send it over to critique so question is pretty how often do you receive raw files versus psd zor tiff scary monsters wants no on dh so if likes games great name if you do receive a raw file do they send example light at it for you? Like what kind of files are you receiving from people for the most part most of the time I will get the raw file and I will get an ex mp on the side and the ex mp is basically aside file that loads all your settings into camera and that just basically says these are the colors things I want or like felix for example he will send a j peg copy of a look that he likes from indian skin and then I will match that later on at the end it's that work for work for wise I think it's most efficient for me to get pre tone files because then I can just say I know that look he wants I can apply my skin work at at the end and be done with it it's clean it's the color he wants and its skin to skin work that he typically wants some file some clients don't know what caloric they want in the beginning so they'll send the raw file I'll do all the skin retouching and then either I will do the color tony at the end or send it back and have them do the killer. Tony so sony variables and the best thing about that is up to you it's up to the photographer, I give the power to the photographer and what he wants, and it works the best because they don't have to shift their work for around, they could just continue their work flow, and I can interject and do exactly what they want, and then maybe one more related to that came oh, you prefer to work on images with little or no sharpening? What sort of pre sharpening a lot of questions about where we come in. I know we're gonna talk about that in the next two days. Yeah, but specifically in this process when they're sending the files to you, do you want any sharpening done? I do not typically one shopping done. What tends happened is two things. When you pre sharpen the image, the amount of work that become delegated to increase is quite a bit actually, especially if you have a high contrast image, and if you decide to sharpen this right now, you see a whole bunch of detail that you then you're gonna have to soften up later or, you know, removed to a certain extent so proud cherie touching I'd like to reach has everything then to the sharpening later if necessary, just because then the work that you do is so clean and that gets enhanced rather than enhancing at the very end. Yeah, however, there are photographers who do like shopping beforehand, which till we find it it's going to be added to the costs and that's great for me too, so yeah, I just want to show you guys so I am actually quite indecisive sometimes, but I've been going through what we're talking and just kind of selecting some of these presets and I'm gonna lay them into my photoshopped file with a variety of options for critique to use here, so it's just processing, I'm going to show you I'm gonna tumble off kind of where I'm going and I'm going to let this color work just inspire me so you can see this will give pritikin idea off I'm going and actually both of these the two different presets and alien skin that I've turned down both of these at they've kind of arrived at the same place they're not that different from each other this tells me something very, very useful, which is I know where I want to go with this image this helps me I am not going to sit here and say, oh, I know immediately what I want to do I'm going to go to into alien skin again and just do one last time and see I'm going to go through some of these film preset and again this is the correct portrait one sixty and see I like that again. I know now that this image I know where I want to go and that's another thing I can you know, if I kind of thought before that I would maybe go to a little bit of a green tint with this but now I'm finding that I think I want a little bit more contrast and maybe quite a ah warm tin has a little metallic feel and this has really helped me come to that conclusion because I was like, oh where's the greenways greenways too green and it's not working it's not working isn't working uh okay, so now I have the annotated file andi this photoshopped file with these various things and I think I'll just send it to critique because I can talk to him openly and say right have a look at these color references see why you want to end up with this and both of these together this on the annotated filed off another image, but he can then use my color reference on this shot that's right? So that's really one of the ways I'm really like a kind of like to do it because this helps me stop being indecisive I love it because it also it's very commercial too I think when you pull the colors away it it sets the precedents for emotion coming to the photo exactly yeah kind of the tone the tonality that you're building you know are clearly to your tastes and yet to my eye if this was intended for a publication, they feel like they would get over it right? And so how do you make that balance in your mind? Well, I think if you if you're sending it to the publication, you're going to send them a high res image and they make the modifications I think that's what people I know my printed does that because I like to have very dark images and he'll throw he'll throw noise into the shadows or hell to stuff just to sort that out I mean, these people it's been really good at that thing yeah, but this I think in the workflow I try not to worry about it because they didn't used to get these high rez psd ease with which they could so much leeway okay, they could be absolutely and just, you know, based on your monitor some yeah things change shadows and highlights and yeah and you're going to show how to calibrate monitor not exactly how to come about giving suggestions on collaboration and things like that oh I hope hoping my monitor calibrated here for free come on tragic twist your arm on dh yeah calibrate not as much as I should but I do how does it come out for your prince do you ever find that your prints are way different? I actually depend on my printer in the uk so good yeah you wear the same relationship I go in and chat to my principal like an hour every time I'm back yeah having good printer is exactly like having good re toucher because you have that relationship you know isn't art printing is definitely art don't let anybody tell you differently and he knows where I want to go with it and he just prince it so beautifully on dh I think when you doing commercial work you get this back you know where you're going to go you know you're doing this for a catalog shoot you need to get everything right and you're going to do that also onset if you're shooting editorial and I think what we did today it's more editorial like the images off tyler I'm going to look very different from the images of her and I'm okay with that you know we have two different sets if you had if we had planned this to be some catalogue shoot we wouldn't have used these vastly different backgrounds wouldn't have used the vastly different modifiers would have kept a theme throughout, right? Exactly. So these are the files I would send to critique along with the roar on dh that anything else? Yeah, there is one thing sometimes what photographers will do let's see, you're just not sure what you like. You can actually let the retouch you help you and say, could you come with a color grade for me? And what I'll do is on top of the research file also knew some ideas that I have because I've worked on so many thousand into worlds, and I understand what could look good with what, so I can give suggestions or secondly, you could say this is what I like and you could send actually magazine images for magazines and or commercial work and say, I love this color tone, and I'll basically kind of get an idea what you like about it and try toe overlay it and see if this is something you like, like a tailor, you know, we're just testing things out and seeing what happens way have to rely on everyone's expertise, right? Yeah, process, all right, should we go through and have a look, a tireless yes to that. Okay, one more question and while you're loading those up, a few people had questions about compositing and when people shoot on a green screen and send you those images they also send you then the the background they want it composited onto you talk a little bit about your process receiving images shore composites actually don't do compose anymore I specialized in strictly retouching rather compositing however, what they would do is if they wanted me to composite something they would both need to send me the backdrop and the model and preferably please don't shoot like black on black because it's extraction is going to be ridiculous you know, shooting a contrasting color green screen, for example and that way allows you to extract really nicely or a color that doesn't clash so much or the luminosity is in clash so much with the model you complete out easily I have gone request that said that say could you please composite this into an image and you go find it? I'm like no, I'm not going to find him is because I don't have a library images that are just waiting for you I needed because of coffee right? Because of so many things we do request it from the photographer um but yes, you'd have to essentially shoot two things and get them close together like joel grimes, the master doing that he's amazing at compositing and they've actually done courses here I'm creative lives, so if you're interested in getting more info on compositing could get absolute check out that plastic there you go, so we're gonna focus on retouching thiss course so so we'll let we'll take another five minutes just have a look at tyler's shoot really threatened about so you can see right away from this is without the for tech thrown in and then we kind of got a little bit more light in the face here could you explain the process of, like, layering life like, do you just know what you want? Or does it just come to bear and say let's us out for taking their that's for a future creative life? We'll see about that when I wish I knew, so we've gone with a completely different feel for this look, we saw that already I really loved the high contrast fuel we got right away. Tyler was a great model everything kind of worked right away I mean he's also an experienced kind of life start a couple of things I'm looking at here that are throwing me off from being able to make a select is I wantto tweak the white balance a little bit it's throwing me off just a little bit I want to see what happens with flash see it's a little bit green for me I think that has to do also with set and styling goes somewhere here. Did we do a colored checker picture that would really be helpful to john throw it in? I don't think so. I don't think so either. That's fine. Okay, and we don't have any gray in this image. I don't really mind because this tone that we haven't already is really beautiful in editorial, I can really go somewhere with this to do select um, I read a book about the history of the photo agency magnum and henry country song it's like you should have your contact sheet should look good, even just so you can make your select and I didn't use to think that I thought I'm going shoes the from the bad images, I'm just going to choose the good poses and make those look good, but actually, now I've come to the point where I want my contact sheet to be quite accurate. I want them to look at, I'm going to go up in the brightness here a little bit on dh copy that to these various files in the capital just going do that really quickly here, I'm going to select all the files I want to stamp this adjustment on two, and I'm going pet control v. Command shift command shift v and I've just brightened up the brightness a little bit just to bring out those shadows I know that particular going to process this I'm not gonna worry too much about the color cast which is really very want but it comes out a little bit different on the screen in there that I'm seeing one here I think I need to get you to celebrate my screen on dh I'm going to just have a look through here and I really think that we hit it home in the look where he was leaning back there it is I just love this expression on his face for me as an editorial portrait photographer this is just something great I'm not so keen on his hand position on the hand here but that doesn't bother me too much I'm just getting a lot of beautiful attitude here I think this hand it tells a kind of a story he's like it's almost like he's holding a uh american football like right yeah, it has yeah it says something about him like a sports person this hand is awkward but I think for a sports person this could be quite interesting you know editorial pictures they can really tell the story I'm just going to check one other thing here we were in this the color balance there we're just going to see this image is kind of remember the caf the collar cast reacts differently on the face one two what we had on the day of hundred so I'm not going to mess around with this too much but I think this is something I could send to critique and he I would ask him then to make some suggestions for color please figure this out that's going to take more time figured out I think you figured out exactly but I mean we can one up there see and that just gets kind of boring but I really like this image I do too I think I'm gonna put this in the select board I'm just gonna put that in the select I mean that's how I would do it I remember you know if I'm shooting I remember kind of some of the things I wanted from the beginning some of the things that went well in the chute and then I'll have a look again but generally I know when I have the shot go ahead you did shoot the color checker and unearth earlier shot of the female model would but you did have the separate light come in would you still use that he lets see what happens okay, so I've got the color checker here thanks for pointing that out. This is why we have the audience I need you guys are in there I'm going to copy that adjustment and take it down to tyler's shoot why was that image in select problem and it goes back together and that's because we shot her on the phase one on this on the neck on its amazing how the orender differently is really interesting it's good to play around and then the sony the little soniya I wish I'd pulled the image up but if brenda's completely differently as well so that's really interesting which is a lot of times why you know even if you apply the same things different camera and lens combinations you won't get the same thing so sometimes matching things isn't as easy as you would assume a swell good hedrick you began with your color balance so what kind of color cast you you like not that you would have done it in this one but do you also specify your crop at this point? No I think the crop khun be done at the very very end because if I could get away with critique retouching the whole face and then I just want the nose you know that's really useful for me he's a job but that happens and they tell me to rehash everything they wanted to the final shot the face when they did the whole body like man I could have saved you want your time with that but yeah but sometimes it's in decided exactly and plus you just don't know what the awkwardness yeah cropping I always end and then I just I mean, you can show, I'll give you. I give critical the plates with this specific shoot. In fact, for this shoot, I'm going to dump everything. He can choose, what he wants, teo to demonstrate, because we have specific technical needs for you, so I can just pick the shot based on taking, yeah, he's going to shoot some, should the worst football, like the black one. Yeah, well, chief thinks that weren't quite right.

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Ratings and Reviews

peter
 

Really wonderful course, thanks. May I suggest a fantastic idea for maybe those who purchase the course? It would be extremely useful to be provided with a summary of the content of each video segment, perhaps a 30-60 second video with written 'dot-point' sheet at the end of each segment, to be reviewed at a later time. It just takes too long to replay each video to get the important messages. The notes provided by Pratik were a step in the right direction but they need more detail of what was presented, including tips and tricks, in each segment. In this way, once having watched the entire course, you could go back and review the nitty-gritty aspects of each segment quickly and efficiently. These quick 'summary' clips could make up a separate 15 minute video, recapping in detail the hard-core content of the course, without interruptions from questions. This would be extremely useful and hopefully not take the presenter too long to film. I feel this would be a wonderful 'added value' aspect of buying the course, as it would not be available for for free viewing. It would certainly encourage me to buy more of the available courses. Keep up the great work at Creative Live! I have stopped my Kelby subscription and just watch you guys now!! Well done!! Peter Bourne Australia

Valentina
 

Pratik has been a revelation and a revolution at the same time, even kinda a benediction because of its huge generosity to show us such an efficient and powerful workflow. His genial approach turns impossible things into possible. What amazed me most, was Pratik ability to see further the shot and take the best of it to reach the perfection. The original photo is still there, very recognizable, but through a precise and meaningful workflow, it becomes eye-catching, high quality, high impact. Pratik is a wonderful person, very genuine, high talented, with a sophisticated sense of the aesthetics and arts. This course changed drastically my way to look at photoshop and at the retouching techniques. Thank you!!

user d3cdf7
 

I have been a retoucher since 1992 and a commercial photographer and I am amazed at the wealth of information Pratik is teaching us. Love his great sense of humor. Yes, retouching takes me way into the early part of the morning...up to 4 am. I've learned to listen to Books on DVD from the library which help my attitude much better. Several degrees behind me and I know I was meant to make a difference with portrait photography. NO ONE wants reality, especially at elder ages. So I continue to learn to retouch professionally and not use a quick retouch filter which renders a fake look. I may incorporate a light retouching filter, but I find I must always do some manual retouching first, in order to have the appearance look real. Which is the old first rule to retouching itself. In the film days, I use to make my own texture screens in order to create more beautiful faces. My photographer friends would ask for my help in using them, when they had blurred an important celebrity shot. The texture screen would help spread the dots and give the appearance of your digital noise now. The results were the image looked more focused Thank you Pratik Naik, for being so generous with your techniques. I am interested in how to price out retouching jobs, as I have been told I give my retouching away with my photography. Thanks,, Jeri Goodwin-Akari cherished moments photography in walla walla, WA

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